tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31911755160952339572023-03-14T08:27:45.532-07:00Acid-Free PaperToilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-88783588060228053012008-03-20T21:45:00.000-07:002008-03-20T21:46:55.214-07:00Novel UpdateNot much to tell. I'm quite a few scenes into the novel now and every scene has fallen into place pretty much as planned. I seem to be developing an interesting process. I'll write a scene over the course of two, or at most three days. Then I'll spend a day or two resting and thinking about the next scene. I have to push myself to go ahead and start writing again, being always certain I'm not ready. But I usually <i>am </i>ready. The scene turns out fine, or even better than I expected. I haven't really taken any wrong turns.<br><br>My Hero and I are getting along swimmingly. I like him a lot. He's even more endearing to me than I expected him to be. <br><br>I've had only one real surprise: My villain made an unexpected appearance early in the story. I'm glad he did; it helped the plot along and makes the story more interesting. I've been reading about plot development, and one key rule is to let the villain drive much of the "second act", to borrow a term from screenplays and drama. I can see why. The villain's activities provide a huge opportunity for dropping herrings and threads of mystery.<br><br>Anyway, it's bed time, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's work, and what could be a better sign than that?<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-88379685606028116172008-02-24T21:48:00.000-08:002008-02-24T21:52:01.453-08:00What's Going OnI live. And write. That's pretty much it.<br><br>'Course, I'm also eating, sleeping, and doing all the other stuff that makes writing possible. Once in a while, I do get out for some fun, too. This afternoon, my partner and I rolled down our sea kayaks and spent some time on the water, first time this year. It was a sunny day, lots of birds, not many people out. Got to see a golden eagle for the first time. He/she was being chased by two angry balds. Nice. (Nice for us, I mean. He <i>kree-shreed</i> about it a lot, whatever that means.)<br><br>But I spent the first half of today writing, and it turned out to be one of my best days in a week, that after having written fifteen straight manuscript pages over three days last weekend. <br><br>So, yeah, it's going alright. Maybe at this rate, I'll have a novel in draft by summer. It'll be my second, but this one's going to be <i>way</i> better than the first.Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-27429946403795110802008-02-02T10:38:00.000-08:002008-02-02T10:40:34.188-08:00It's Saturday. It's Snowing. Bliss.I'm in heaven. It's Saturday. It's snowing like crazy. I just finished eating a stack of one of my specialty breakfasts, home-made chocolate-chunk waffles, and sipping down a delicious latte while my partner and I talked about our happy lives. Now I'm sitting at my desk with a window to a white forest while I flush out a fun, new novel. Bliss.Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-76954831946980809042008-01-29T20:31:00.000-08:002008-02-03T21:18:50.191-08:00Time to WriteI had an interesting exchange with a friend of mine. <br><br>She's a mother of a four-year-old, and I know what that means. Hers is more than just a "real" job; it's a lifestyle. It's a full-time physical, mental, and emotional commitment to a long, demanding, no-way-out project. I have incredible respect for a mother who stays in control of her life despite the frantic pace presented by her job, and my friend does that fairly well.<br><br>So the other day my friend made a tiny, insignificant request on my time, and I was more than happy to help her out. However, it was the way she asked that left me scratching my head. She said, "I know how busy you are, but could you possibly do [x] for me?" <br><br>Well, I'm not busy. I'm a writer. Not only that, I'm an unpublished writer. [SNIP] That leaves me with tons of time, more than almost anyone I know.<br><br>Why, then, would my friend say, "I know how busy you are...", when she knows how much time I actually have?<br><br>Because she's sweet. In truth, she has absolutely no idea what I do with my time. <br><br>I'm sure she wonders about it, though. I would. <em>"Why can't he talk on the phone? Why does it take him so long to answer my emails? Why can't he host a party once in a while? After all, he sees me doing much more than that, and all while herding a four-year-old!"</em><br><br>Sorry, dear. I wish I could tell you the answer. <br><br>[SNIP] <br><br>(Edited: In fact, I tried to offer an answer here, but I failed remarkably. It seems my answer sent the opposite of its intended message, which is always an impressive accomplishment for a writer. Best I not address this topic, methinks.)Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-30470013591146547612008-01-22T20:52:00.000-08:002008-01-22T20:54:28.736-08:00Novel UpdateEnough talk about vacation. It's time to get back to work. <br><br>So I spent a few days trying to figure out how to get my mind back in the groove, which is to say, how to get my novel going again. I tried toying with my notes for a while, but the words still wouldn't come, so I finally decided to go back and read it through from the beginning. I was hooked. If this were a real book, I would have stayed up late reading it. What a relief. <br><br>Tomorrow I'm going to try something I haven't done for a while. I'm writing a dramatic scene in which two characters are at extreme odds. In fact, the first wishes to torture the second, and the second wishes to kill the first. They know this about each other, but owing to some unique circumstances, they have to pretend to be civil. So I have a unique challenge: to make the characters say and do one thing, but mean and intend something entirely different. One of my better short stories employs this technique, but not to such an extreme degree. Should be fun.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-90341283726787343862008-01-17T13:50:00.000-08:002008-01-21T21:49:50.268-08:00Arts Cruise NewsWell, I'm back from the Arts Cruise. My partner and I had a great time. <br><br>I'm blown away by how well Quent and Linda planned the Arts portion. Grand pianos, recitals, plays, drawing demonstrations, information packets for our rooms, transportation, sound systems, and on and on.... And to think this was their first attempt at a conference! Wow! Congratulations to both of you!<br><br>As for the vacation aspect, we knew going into the trip that the cruise ship and the kind of crowd it would draw were not going to be our scene -- and we couldn't have been more right about that! -- but we also knew that almost nothing could prevent the two of us from having a great time on our own, and I'm sure we would have, except that we rarely had to be alone. So many interesting and passionate people attended that we found ourselves with another, unexpected problem: too little time to visit with everyone we wanted to meet. Even now I'm thinking of people I only just barely met and wishing that I could buy them a drink and hang out for a while. Sigh...<br><br>The presenters were all great. Given the challenges they faced -- you'd understand what I mean if you had gone -- they all did an exceptional job. Everyone kind of rolled with it, so to speak. Even in the rare cases where I didn't favor a particular musical performance or score or agree with something that was said, it was a constant pleasure to just be among so many similarly-impassioned romanticists. Speaking of that, the impromptu dancing in Nefertiti's Nipple (or whatever the place was called) was fabulous to watch! Thanks to all of you! <br> <br>So much joy, so little time. :-)<br> <br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-5355217362693098792008-01-16T20:39:00.001-08:002008-01-16T20:47:08.411-08:00Nim's IslandI just discovered <a href="http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/nimsisland/">the trailer</a> for the movie based on Wendy Orr's book, Nim's Island. Haven't read the book, but the movie looks fun.<br /><br />I'm adding Wendy Orr's <a href="http://wendyorrjournal.blogspot.com/">Journal</a> to my bookmarks, though I doubt I'll read her books. I have about a 20-year head-start on her readers.Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-69791439744987847102007-12-20T09:33:00.000-08:002007-12-20T11:58:28.893-08:00Being Versus TellingSo I just started reading Book II of the Pullman trilogy <i>His Dark Materials</i>, which begins with <i>The Golden Compass</i>. Right away, I stumble over what is one of Pullman's biggest faults. For me personally, it's a huge problem. It's enough to make me fall completely out of his stories, especially when it happens during an important plot scene, which it does often enough in a Pullman tale. (In fact, you could say that the entire plot of the first novel was predicated on this error.)<br><br>Basically, Pullman ignores his characters. He creates characters and writes about them from a distance, as if he were merely reciting the text of some play rather than being an actual actor who dons the makeup, dress, and physical demeanor and then speaks and acts as if he <i>were</i> the character.<br><br>Here's an example of what I mean: The story begins with a boy searching an old abandoned house from top to bottom for some special notebook that contains a raft of mysterious letters, which, once he finds it, will reveal tons of answers to questions that have dogged the boy for many years. I mean really HUGE questions, like, "Who is/was my father? Why was he so special? What happened to him? Why are my mother and I being chased by dangerous, bad people? Who are they?" And so on. So he finds the tablet and gets away from the bad guys, then by some miracle he ends up in a mysterious paradise where he has literally tons of time to do nothing. <br><br>We all know what he will do next, right? He'll do what any other boy, man, girl, woman, or space alien would do. He'll tear open the tablet and read the contents voraciously.<br><br>Wrong. He never opens the tablet. <br><br>Yes, he's dying to find out what's inside. Yes, he has waited his whole life to find out these answers. But he DOESN'T OPEN THE TABLET! Instead, he meets a mysterious girl and they talk. Then they eat dinner. Then they make plans to go on a trip. Then he says that he really wants to know what's inside the tablet, gee whiz, but instead he'll LEAVE IT BEHIND! It's safe here, he says, so he'll just read it when he comes back. Off they go, tra-la-la!<br><br>At this point I say something like "J. F. C.!" I drop the book on the table, and I swear I won't finish it. (I probably will.)<br><br>Note to self: If a character "wants" to do something, either let him do it and then find a way to make the plot work around it, or change the precipitating events so that the character no longer has any real knowledge of or opportunity to do that thing, or change the character entirely. But never, NEVER, force a character to do something stupid and obnoxious just because it's expedient for the plot. <br><br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-32988388475717576012007-12-18T10:43:00.000-08:002007-12-20T09:35:44.622-08:00Cheers to Pullman of The Golden Compass FameMy respect for Philip Pullman, author of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Golden Compass</span>, inched up a bit after reading <a title="an interview" href="http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/697" id="vnps">an interview</a> in which he addresses the controversy surrounding the film.<br><blockquote><font color="#000000"><font size="2">"So he won't argue back?" [the interviewer asks.] [Pullman answers,] "It's a foolish thing for the teller of a story to answer critics. If you're putting forward an argument, you can argue back and demonstrate why your argument is better than theirs. But if someone doesn't like a story you've written, what are you going to say? 'Well, you should'?"</font></font><br></blockquote><font color="#000000"><font size="2">How incredibly rare is that?! For once an author doesn't say the usual: "I apologize for any offense I might have caused. I respect everyone's point of view, and I'm not trying to say that my ideas are better than anyone elses." Blah, blah, blah. <br><br>Congratulations, Mr. Pullman, for having a spine.<br><br>On a separate but related note, I did enjoy reading <i>The Golden Compass</i>, more or less. I liked the swift and steady beat of the story, although I felt like it suffered from being a bit <i>too</i> swift in places. I'm told by a writer friend of mine that such a fast pace might be appropriate for a young audience. Could be. <br><br>Here's a funny coincidence: I walked out of the bookstore with two books in my hands, Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i> and Pullman's <i>The Golden Compass</i>. I headed straight to a nearby coffee shop and set about trying to decide which of the two I would read first. Imagine my surprise when I read in the introduction to <i>The Golden Compass</i> that it happens to be Pullman's answer to <i>Paradise Lost</i>. Fate must have guided my hands. (Just kidding.)<br></font></font> <br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-90006729972413818522007-11-26T11:07:00.000-08:002007-12-20T09:36:08.157-08:00Strand 80 WinnersI blogged <a title="recently" href="http://acid-freepaper.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-dont-normally-promote-these-kinds-of.html" id="kc9u">recently</a> about a contest at the Strand Bookstore in New York City. If you recall, the top 80 books to be named as favorites by customers would be featured at the front of the store, and certain prizes were to be given away.<br><br>The results are in:<br><br>1. To Kill a Mockingbird<br>2. Pride and Prejudice<br>3. Great Gatsby<br>4. Catcher in the Rye<br>5. Atlas Shrugged<br>6. The Fountainhead<br>7. Lord of the Rings<br>8. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)<br>9. Jane Eyre<br>10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone<br>11. Lolita<br>12. 1984<br>13. On the Road (Kerouac)<br>14. Gone With the Wind<br>15. Anna Karenina<br>16. Brothers Karamazov<br>17. Crime and Punishment<br><br>To see the rest, go to <a title="Strand's website" href="http://www.strandbooks.com/app/www/p/booklist/?listid=strand80" id="y3mv">Strand's website</a>.<br> <br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-31634700322413454652007-10-26T10:07:00.000-07:002007-12-20T09:36:30.800-08:00Alert: Mcgonagall Has a Fetish for Dragon HideI don't agree with everything in this article from the Dallas News, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-rowlingcolumn_1024gl.State.Edition1.2292bdc.html" id="gl46" title="Harry Potter and the Author Who Wouldn't Shut Up">Harry Potter and the Author Who Wouldn't Shut Up</a>, but I agree with the basic intent of it.<br><br>Creativity is only half the job of an author; selectivity is the other half. <br><br>So you made your choices, Ms. Rowling. They were tough choices. Some of them you may even regret. Now you have to do what all authors do: live with those choices. That's your job. Or, if you just can't endure having all of those morbid darlings locked up inside of you, how about writing another book? I'm sure you'd find a hungry audience.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-6467928265582705112007-10-23T10:57:00.000-07:002007-10-23T12:36:22.917-07:00World BuildingIf you are at all familiar with fantasy literature, then you know what it means to be a world builder. Some authors decide to be builders — Tolkien, Piers Anthony, Anne McGaffrey — while others may not — Neil Gaiman, Ann Rice, and J.K. Rowlings. Since all of these authors project a fantastical metaphysics, a strange and unique world, then the term <i>world building</i> must imply something more. <br><br>It basically means creating a complete and convincing alternate universe. Notice I didn't say merely alternate<i> reality</i>, but alternate <i>universe</i>. Turning a taxicab driver into a warlock does not an alternate universe make. Instead, try creating Middle Earth, populating it with all sorts of species of men and animals, creating distinct languages for some of them, writing poetry in those languages, writing a history of all the peoples in that world, and so on. If you have ever seen The Silmarillion, you will know that Tolkien took world building to the maximum.<br><br>I have enjoyed more than a few alternate universes in my day, but I never expected to create one myself. In fact, at one time <i>I meant not to</i>. It seemed to me that so much indulgence in fantastic details must be motivated by love of fantasy for fantasy's sake. Well, as Bilbo Baggins might tell you, some things don't turn out the way we expect them to. I'm now world building. Here's what happened.<br><br>I aim to write a novel that begins during the Spanish Inquisition. However, I don't want to write about the actual Spanish Inquisition. Doing so would require historical writing, which doesn't interest me at all. I simply want the cultural backdrop for my story to be about mixing religion and politics, not to mention race/family and state — in other words, tribalism — in all cultures in all times, and I'd like to do so without spending the next ten years of my life researching details about old, dead Catholics. <br><br>Fantasy to the rescue. <br><br>So I dream up this fascinating cultural situation for My Hero. Then I begin to figure out what motivates specific characters. I ask myself, "Why did this guy get this responsibility? Where did he come from? Why do these other guys hate him so much? Are they related? What would a guy like him do about it?" And so on. Next thing I know, I'm saying, "This guy came from a marriage of these two important people. Then he and his brother had a falling out. One went this way and became like this, while the other went this other way and became like that." And so on. My alternate world begins to gain history, language, and certain metaphysical properties that distinguish men from men and provide context for motives. As you can see, I'm world building. <br><br>The bottom line is: If you want to create a complex plot in a fantastic setting, and you expect to project anything close to verisimilitude, then you're going to have to spend some time creating that universe. A few casual touches here and there isn't going to do it, at least not for my taste.<br><br>It's not as if I plan to pull a Tolkien — not even close, as if I even could. There will be no special languages in my world, and no Silmarrilion, but I do expect my story to have depth, else the characters won't. <br><br>As an added plus, I'm finding that quite a few plot points arise from exploring these fantastic spaces. <br><br>Though I'm not using the following guide myself, here's a sample of just how far some writers will go to create a world, for whatever reason: <a title="this Fantasy Worldbuilding Questionaire" href="http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm" id="q0i.">Fantasy Worldbuilding Questionnaire</a>, created by author Patricia Wrede.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-53208897848591712072007-10-09T10:01:00.000-07:002007-10-10T08:38:05.107-07:00Drizzt and the Forgotten NovelI told a friend that I was writing a kind of fantasy novel. He said, "Have you read anything by Salvatore?"<br> <br> "No, I don't think so."<br> <br>"Really?! Not anything by him?!" <br><br>"No," I repeated. How obnoxious! As if one author should know everyone else's favorite authors.<br><br>"I can't believe it!" he said. "You have to know about Drizzt du Orden. He spawned, like, <i>everything</i>." He went on from there, touching on just about every aspect of fantasy, from books to RPGs to movies and comics, and... Anyway, I got the impression that there wouldn't be any fantasy at all without this Drizzt character. Tolkien, Le Guin, M.Z. Bradley, <i>et al</i> — none of these even entered the picture.<br><br>"Maybe I've heard of Drizzt. Sounds familiar. But no, I don't think I've read Salvatore. Sorry."<br><br>"Huh. Interesting." Obviously he had lost hope that I would ever become a worthy successor of his main man Salvatore.<br><br>So I searched the web. Turns out my local neighborhood Powell's bookstore has about 10,000 copies of Salvatore's books (slight exaggeration). So I stop by Powell's and pick up the novel that started it all: <em>The Crystal Shard</em>. I thumb through the ragged copy before I buy it. By the end of the first page, I begin to feel myself entering familiar territory. By the middle of the first chapter, I know that I have already read this book, maybe twice.<br><br>This happens to me all the time. It seems I lack the ability to remember names of characters, authors, actors, or anyone else. What's more, I have read so many paperbacks, especially during a frenzied period in the 1980s, that I'll probably never remember some of them even if I were to read them all over again.<br><br>I suppose I could inform my friend that I've read about Drizzt after all, but I probably won't. I prefer to be underestimated.<br><br>And this leads directly to my next post, though on a slightly different subject. Stay tuned...<br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-59111336974334552172007-10-01T08:54:00.000-07:002007-10-01T09:01:07.373-07:00In a Word: PencilImagine my surprise when I looked up the word <em>pencil</em> in the <a title="Online Etymology Dictionary" href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pencil" id="et3p">Online Etymology Dictionary</a>:<br><blockquote> c.1386, "an artist's fine brush of camel hair," from O.Fr. pincel "artist's paintbrush" (Fr. pinceau), from L. penicillus "paintbrush, pencil," lit. "little tail," dim. of peniculus "brush," itself a dim. of penis "tail" (see penis).<br></blockquote>Think about that the next time you cradle a pencil in your hand.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-4593841512740979362007-09-26T07:52:00.000-07:002007-09-26T07:53:23.405-07:00Visual ThesaurusIf you're a writer, you have to check out <a title="this tool" href="http://www.visualthesaurus.com/" id="lcmi">this tool</a>. It's mesmerizing, maybe dangerously so. <br><br>Just imagine an interactive thesaurus...oh, forget it. I don't want to bother trying to explain. Just click on the link and you'll get a demonstration. (Java must be enabled in your browser.) <br><br>I hate thesaurus authors. I'm not one. I find that I have a wide enough vocabulary for most of the stories that I write, partly because I try to write within my own frame of reference as much as possible. But there's always some word that gets only as far as the tip of my tongue and just won't form, thesaurus to the rescue. <br><br>I also find that learning new words is more fun in a thesaurus than in a dictionary, because it's topical and not alphabetic and because it links parts of speech better, but this is also what makes a thesaurus so dangerous. An ideal online thesaurus would have a timer that starts ticking as soon as you open it.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-45609793203008395922007-09-21T10:31:00.000-07:002007-09-24T08:19:34.215-07:00Caveman Causation and PlotI'm amused. I've been studying ancient legends from several cultures, including American Indian and Basque. And by ancient, I mean <i>really</i> ancient, as in barely beyond primitive hunter-gatherer myths.<br> <br> First off, regarding those sentimentalists who opine about "lost cultures" — you know, the ones who say that "we have lost so much from the past" — to them I say, "What are you smoking?!" And to the honest ones among them I say, "Read these myths; you'll be shocked by just how NOT romantic and wise they are."<br> <br> Having said that, and without going into a spirited critique of the many shortcomings of these early myths, I'll just note that none of them have a plot, and the reason seems clear. They appear to have no real concept of causation. Extraordinary things just happen randomly. Witness:<br> <blockquote> In a Tartar poem two heroes named Ak Molot and Bulat engage in mortal combat.... At last when the combat has lasted three years a friend of Ak Molot sees a golden casket hanging by a white thread from the sky and bethinks him that perhaps this casket contains Bulat's soul. So he shot through the white thread with an arrow and down fell the casket. He opened it and in the casket sat ten white birds and one of the birds was Bulat's soul. Bulat wept when he saw that his soul was found in the casket. But one after the other the birds were killed and then Ak Molot easily slew his foe. <i>(The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion By James George Frazer, MacMillan, 1900)</i><br> </blockquote> A golden casket just falls from the sky. Okay. How? Why? Caused by whom? No clue offered here.<br> <br> For the longest time, I could not understand what motivated the characters to act in these early myths. Even when reacting to random phenomena falling from the sky, their actions still didn't seem to add up. But then I finally realized that the characters are treated in <i>almost</i> the same way as these phenomena. It isn't just that I don't understand their value system and therefore cannot see what motivates them — although this must explain <i>some</i> of my confusion. Mainly I just think that the characters have no real, goal-directed purpose at all.<br> <br> Thus, a "hero" is no hero at all. X happens, and the "hero" responds by going on a random trip. Y happens, and he responds by falling over dead, maybe because of a curse, maybe because he ate a bad mushroom, maybe just <i>because</i>. Finally, Z happens and the "hero" comes back from the dead and avenges his cousin, then dies again. In a relatively "good" myth, he will die the second time because he fails to show gratitude toward the guy who brought him back from the dead. In a mediocre myth, he will die the second time because he stepped on a dirty shell and got sick. In a regular, everyday myth, he will just die again and no explanation will be given.<br> <br> So, to what end were these stories perpetuated? Got me. Probably entertainment as much as anything. Nights were long, and TV hadn't been invented.<br> <br> A lot of the stories do have a moral message, but the way the myths work is not to develop a compelling background for the moral message in order to give it more force. Rather, the myths often appear to be random; it could be any tale with any cast of characters. Thus, the messages in them tend to get tacked on like ornaments on a tree, which is to say, they appear as single sentences here and there, often completely out of the blue.<br> <br> I have this image of a shaman who must teach his tribe certain lessons about life, and he has a limited set of stories to tell — maybe fifteen or twenty major story lines in his repertoire — which he retells over and over again. Each time, he just randomly intrudes on the story and says something like, "And that's when Raven took a holiday, and while he was visiting his grandmother, he killed her because she hadn't kept the house clean." And then he goes back to the story line, which has nothing whatsoever to do, really, with Raven and even less to do with Raven's grandmother.<br> <br> I have read and studied and loved Homer over the years, especially the Odyssey. Now I appreciate just what an extraordinary development Homer was. I mean <i>extraordinary</i>! No wonder the Basques appear to have fallen in love with Greek myth from the moment they first heard it.<br> <br> And finally, I will add that I am feeling sympathetic right now with the early shaman's plight. Driving a narrative along a complex chain of purposive action is no mean feat.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-28596997033905688452007-09-18T08:51:00.000-07:002007-09-18T08:54:37.788-07:00NaNoWriMo NovemberIt's called <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/" id="bc28" title="NaNoWriMo">NaNoWriMo</a>. Have you heard of it? Practitioners call it, "na-no-rye-mo". (And no, the keys on my PC didn't get stuck. That's really what it's called.)<br> <br> It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it's a kind of contest or personal challenge.<br> <br> The idea is simple: write an entire novel in one month. Whoever succeeds receives a badge and a heightened sense of accomplishment, which is a very huge thing to get when most of your writing projects take years to finish—if they ever get finished—and end up as dust collectors anyway, never to be published nor even read by anyone, and forgotten, while you trudge on to the next novel, which will also likely end up as a dust collector.<br> <br> I don't care who you are, even Howard Roark; that's a depressing scenario.<br> <br> The novel you write for the contest doesn't have to be good. In fact, it can be awful. You just have to write through to the end. To meet its intended purpose, I suppose you'd have to set forth at least a rudimentary plot and write to it. But the prose can be too wretched to show your dog.<br> <br> A mere year or two ago, I would have scoffed at NaNoWriMo. Today I appreciate it and would heartily recommend it to some would-be writers I know.<br> <br> I'm not going to do it, because I'm getting along okay with my current novel, and as depressing as the aforementioned dust-collecting scenario may be, I'm sufficiently determined to keep plowing forward anyway. (My partner calls it stubbornness, among other things.)<br> <br> Do you know what habit or skill the NaNoWriMo is attempting to inculcate? I do. It's a lesson I've had to learn the hard way. Here's an excerpt from NaNoWriMo's website:<br><br><blockquote>At a dinner reception for a writing conference, [NaNoWriMo's founder] was stopped by a fellow presenter.... "You saved me," she said. It turns out she was a writer who'd published her stories in the New Yorker when she was younger. But as the pressure mounted, she became too self-critical to write. NaNoWriMo had made creating stories fun again, and she was at the conference to talk about a new collection of her work that had just been published.<br></blockquote><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-28766030510119929692007-09-13T10:22:00.000-07:002007-09-13T10:28:22.609-07:00New Fantasy SF BlogThe same people who run <A id="hb8:" href="http://www.writerswrite.com/" title="Writers Write">Writers Write</A> (a blog I follow) started a new blog called <A href="http://www.fantasysfblog.com/" id="pua1" title="Fantasy SF Blog">Fantasy SF Blog</A>. <BR><BR>Check it out if you like news and gossip on the SF and Fantasy fronts, especially about shows and movies. New posts have been appearing almost every day. On Sep 5, they tipped me off to a new, more graphic trailer for Beowulf, although I must say that I'm almost guaranteed to hate this movie, especially when I hear lines like, "...beyond your imagination." Ugh.<br /><br />Beowulf deserves better. <BR><BR>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-68193706111686139602007-09-07T07:06:00.000-07:002007-09-13T10:23:40.690-07:00Vote for Your Favorite BookI don't normally promote these kinds of book votes. They pop up so often that participating in them just becomes a chore. But here's one with a couple nice kickbacks: If your favorite books get the most votes, they'll be featured at the front of the Strand Bookstore in NYC, backed by some marketing hype, plus you may win a gift:<br><br><blockquote>GRAND PRIZE: The STRAND 80…all 80 books! <br>SECOND PRIZE: A private walking tour of literary NYC with five (5) of your friends <br>THIRD PRIZE: A strand Gift Certificate for $80<br></blockquote><br>Vote for your five favorites here: <a title="The Strand Bookstore's 80" href="http://www.strandbooks.com/strand80" id="zqr9">The Strand Bookstore's 80</a> <br><br>Voting ends in a week (September 15).<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-56479949498893545312007-08-17T11:46:00.000-07:002007-08-17T11:48:06.837-07:00Technical Writers on ChaucerFrom <A HREF=http://www.writerswrite.com/wblog.php?wblog=814071 ID=hjqa TITLE="Writers Write">Writers Write</A>:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> A professor argues that technical writers are the future of American literature. Utah Valley State College English professor Scott Hatch says that the great American literature of the early 20th century was penned by journalists such as Ernest Hemingway, but in the future it is the technical writers who have the best training to be novelists.<BR> </BLOCKQUOTE> As you may know, I used to be a technical writer. Can't say that I loved it, but it was a good job for me in a couple respects. One, it made me learn to produce words even when I didn't want to. Two, it instilled excellent editing skills. And three, it made me say to myself, "Oh, look. It's a writer looking back at me in the mirror. Hey, that's really what I do for a living! Cool!"<BR> <BR> (Four, it also made me much more likely to write things in ordered lists, a habit I'm still trying to break.)<BR> <BR> Anyway, I think the professor may have a point, but I would disagree with his reasoning. The main reason, IMNSHO, is that real Literature and Creative Writing programs in most influential American universities were long ago murdered, cremated, and put away in ancient crypts to be treated as frightening relics of "The Old Establishment". These programs have mostly been replaced by so-called Critical (or Gender) Theory with its relativist yet at the same time dogmatic cultural ethos (meaning anything goes as long as it is anti-white, anti-male, and anti-corporation) and its non-existent writing standards.<BR> <BR> Though neither Technical Writing nor modern Literature courses have anything to do with literature, at least Technical Writing has the distinction of teaching its graduates to actually write and to think intelligently and productively about what they're reading. How revolutionary.<BR><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-80560452502454462752007-08-09T12:46:00.000-07:002007-08-09T12:55:16.452-07:00Once Upon a TimeThe time has finally come. The players are set, and today I move my first pawn.<br><br>My novel has a rich and interesting back-story, so I have decided to start in the past — <i>pre media res</i>, if you will. For weeks I've been trying to find a way to weave this back-story into the narrative, but finally I've just given up and decided to tell the whole story chronologically. I'll either discover that this was the right move, or I'll find out where my story really wants to begin. Either way, there's no use staring at a blank piece of paper for more weeks on end. <br><br>Besides, I'm excited about these earlier events and want to write about them, and as I said in <a title="this long post" href="http://acid-freepaper.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-owe-it-to-my-readers-to-provide-some.html">this long post</a> about my progress as a plot writer, my mind seems to want to think about my story this way anyway — that is, visually and by just diving in and exploring the territory, especially the characters.<br><br>Though I do have the bones of a plot, I'm planning on letting my characters have the final say about it.<br><br>My partner, who has about 17 U.S. patents and has proven himself to be very capable of being creative at will, tells me that this is the process of keeping your target fairly wide in the early stages of being creative. It's still a target that you choose — don't get me wrong about that — but it's wide enough that you actually have a reasonable chance of hitting it as you proceed through all of the unknowns that lie ahead. I think he's right. So far, my attempts to lay down a very specific, step-by-step plot at the outset has felt like a kind of rationalistic exercise for me, because it requires a certain kind of omniscience about a terrain that I haven't yet tread.<br><br>Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes. <br><br>Expect light blogging for a while — possibly a long while — especially if my story takes flight. Or maybe I should say, if it catches on fire.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-14561616978140370802007-07-30T12:19:00.000-07:002007-07-30T19:32:16.659-07:00Dear J. K. RowlingThank you! <br /><br />Twists and turns, hints and herrings, seven novels long — how on earth did you put it all together?! At a time when the engine of the plot novel seemed to be running low on gas, you filled the tank right back up to the top, and then you filled the spare tank, and then you kept on filling even a couple of extra cans in the boot for good measure. <br /><br />Sadly, many writers today look down their Snape-ish noses at the plot novel, so it comes as no surprise that a few of them would decry your work. Yet those of us who have ever tried to write a plot know the truth: that none of those slithering cynics could come within a mile of your accomplishment. Yours was an incredibly tough job, yet you not only made it through to the end, but you did so with panache, with Filibuster Fireworks, and best of all, with integrity. You did what you set out to do some seventeen years ago, and you remained true to your own spirit until the end. Makes you a bit like Harry, doesn't it?<br /><br />You cast spells over our heads while we stood in line for bookstores to open at midnight; we didn't even notice the rain. You enchanted our eyelids to make them stay open as we read through the night. Like mannequins, we laughed and cried and swooned and shuddered, our hearts beat faster and slower, and our temperatures rose and fell at your imperious command. <br /><br />If story-telling is magical, then you're one of the rarest, most gifted witches in this world, a world full of muggles.<br /><br />I could quibble. I won't, at least not here, not today. Instead I say: <br /><br />Congratulations, Miss Rowling! Unfurl the maroon and gold banners. The cup is yours! Not even Krum could have flown such a thrilling game!<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-38835625628574364162007-07-30T10:18:00.000-07:002007-07-30T10:28:30.566-07:00Novel UpdateI owe it to my readers to provide some kind of status report about my work, since you've been so patient.<BR><BR> I mentioned the hero of my current novel in <A href="http://acid-freepaper.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-have-discovered-most-fascinating.html" title="this post">this recent post</A>. Well, he's still alive and kicking; I haven't given up on him and he hasn't given up on me. To the contrary, we've become pretty good friends over the last few months and I'm reasonably confident that he's going to have his adventure after all.<BR><BR> If only I could tell you more about him. Unfortunately, writing isn't like painting in the sense that I can't offer tantalizing views of my progress the way Bryan Larsen does over at <A href="http://www.bryanlarsenfineart.com/wordpress/" title="Rational Art">Rational Art</A>. It would be perilous for me to describe the background of my story or even to mention the theme. Doing so would be like trying to bring a pre-term, unborn child out to look at him; you can't really put him back in the womb. (Besides, most pre-term story ideas sound stupid and unconvincing.)<BR><BR> Here's a safe hint: The story is set partly in an imaginary portion of the PNW. The rest is set, well, somewhere far, far away. And my hero? His name is...a secret. (It happens to be thematic.) I will tell you only that he has a very hot disposition. Beyond that, you'll just have to settle for some comments about my progress.<BR><BR> My goal with this novel has always been to learn how to plot, and that is what I'm doing, though not very efficiently nor even very gracefully, which is perfectly fine with me. I expected this story to present all sorts of trouble along the way. After all, one learns by taking on challenges and overcoming them.<BR><BR>I've been patiently probing the plot and the characters, which has started to pay some dividends. In one sense, the story has grown more complex, and in another sense, stayed rather simple. By complex, I mean that I'm beginning to see a web of actions and circumstances that are at times intriguing, mysterious, and—I hope—suspenseful. By simple, I mean that the overall story remains true to my original idea. Even better, the basic action-line of the story remains straightforward much the way the central plot of Lord of the Rings—getting Frodo Baggins from the Shire to Mordor—runs through all three stories despite the many conflicts and subplots along the way.<BR><BR> The situation hasn't always been this good. I've taken several wrong turns, both with the story and with how I approached the novel-writing process. Novels seem to provide endless opportunities to make wrong turns. Sometimes I wonder how anyone ever figured out how to get from "Once upon a time..." to "...happily ever after." If only someone would invent a compass for novelists, but then again, there aren't very many good maps of the terrain, so what good would a compass be?<BR><BR> And that brings me to the final subject of this update: I'm learning how to better avoid some of the details early on, to get out of the way of the story, and to let my muse have his say. Am I going New Agey? No, I'm just dealing with reality, which means: I'm looking for the right mix of planning-with-a-light-touch coupled with the freedom to let my brain do what it does best. This is how I already write my short stories, and I once read an essay by Edgard Allan Poe in which he asserts that most writers need to work the same way when they write novels, else they'll fail. I can attest to the wisdom in his claim.<BR><BR> My brain is highly visual. This makes me good at rendering scenes but not nearly as good at planning them. I have to be careful not to ignite the visual part of my brain, which is my muse, before it's time, else my muse takes over and the planning process gets trumped. So I skirt around the periphery of my story in a kind of phantom dance with my subconscious, first getting a hint of an idea, then checking it against my overall plan, and quickly backing off when the images start to form too clearly in my mind. Right then I have to say to my muse, "Get back behind the starting line; I haven't fired the gun."<BR><BR> I'm sure that after having written several novels, not only will I know better how to stay out of my muse's way, but also my muse will begin to accept some of my direct mental processes in the early stages—or so I hope. Until that time, your continued patience with my progress is much appreciated.<BR><BR> P.S. I just finished another short story. It's something like high fantasy, which I only now realize I haven't written before. (Tolkien is high fantasy; Rowling, Dinesen, Shelley are not.)<BR><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-7520022834365649132007-07-24T08:08:00.000-07:002007-07-24T15:31:07.689-07:00Only Martians Need a Synopsis for This BookThe inside flap of the jacket on J.K. Rowling's final book bears only the following few words:<br><blockquote>We now present the seventh and final installment in the epic tale of Harry Potter.<br></blockquote>What a fine compliment to Miss Rowling. No introduction needed.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3191175516095233957.post-3909094279084374122007-07-16T07:19:00.000-07:002007-07-16T11:17:04.827-07:00My HeroI have discovered a most fascinating byproduct of being a writer, and a romantic one in particular.<br> <br>I ride bikes with a group of triathletes and Masters athletes two to three times per week, although I only participate for the health benefits, not to compete. <br><br>I manage to keep up. To the extent that my body has enough fuel to keep moving, the most critical effort seems to be in my head. Like they say in those old fantasy stories, you've got to believe in your own power otherwise the magic won't happen.<br><br>Even so, there are times when I think that I'm going to die. It's usually when the coach has been driving us at, say, 80 - 90% max heart rate for forty minutes and through ten killer sets, then he says that we're going to kick it up a notch to 90 - 100%. "Not to worry," he says, "we only have five more sets to go." That's five more sets. Not one. Not two. But five. Okay, maybe I can handle four more sets out of sheer determination, but god help me on that last set. <br><br>But of course, god can't help me, because "he" is just a polyp in someone's imagination. I'm on my own. Well, not exactly. I recently discovered that I have a secret power. It's called My Hero, and he is the protagonist of my current novel.<br><br>When I reach that point of imminent death (figuratively speaking), beyond where most others would quit, past the point where I've already spent my own quite substantial reserves of determination and where my body starts to tell me that there's simply nothing left to give, then all I ever have to do is ask myself, "What would My Hero do?" Never fail, like some kind of gift of strength or a magic power, I find a will, not merely to survive and limp through those last few minutes, but to actually speed up and break through at one hundred percent.<br><br>My coach watches me. He compliments the way I finish sets. I appreciate his compliments, because they speak well of My Hero.<br><br>Toilerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08953413585016766709noreply@blogger.com0