In November of 2012, we got a cat, Smokey. Insert stories of the cat grooming us here.
January 2013. After reading about the productivity of other writers who Arise Early, I started getting up at 5:30 to write during unprotected time. Two weeks later I got sick. And vacationed in New York. The rest of the year was a battle to get up and write, which I won from about April to about October.
February 2013. In a conscious effort to cut back my swearing at other drivers, I started saying, "bless you," instead of "damn you all to hell!" This joins "Come on, Dover," and "Driver, why have we stopped?" Although there's a visceral pleasure in muttering (usually) expletives, every now and I then it strikes me how ugly it makes me -- and shouldn't we all be spreading blessings to each other? Even if they are said ironically? Oh, who am I kidding; I still invent new circles of hell in which to condemn the people I'm forced to share the road with.
March 2013. My short story, "The Gear Master's Wife" was chosen for publication by On the Premises. I lucked out on this one. The Wordo's Holiday story for December was a good match for the theme On the Premises was looking for, "Holiday." Based on these sales, I'd say that a good relationship / married couple story does well there.
Machine cut paper projects continued.
April 2013. I managed to start writing in the mornings again. The sun was rising earlier, and I wrote outside so as not to wake the family with keyboard clicking.
Later in the month, I took a train to Seattle for a Clarion Mini Workshop on writing characters. I'd say writing characters is my weakest quality as a writer (my strongest is cool ideas and world building). There were some good pointers -- and I felt like the stupidest, slowest (and oldest) writer there (I wasn't having the best Sunday morning). Everyone else managed to pump out short-story bits as if they were Zeus giving birth to Athena. I felt like Peter Shaffer's Antonio Salieri in a room full of Mozarts.
Sometimes I wish I could take the full, immersive, six-week long, Clarion writing workshop. Although it's expensive, I could apply for a scholarship. But A) it's in Seattle, B) I'd have have to leave my job, C) I'd have to leave my family, and D) I have a feeling I'd never get any sleep. OK, and E) I can imagine being surrounded by twenty-something Mozarts popping out Athenas while I'm bogged down in world-building in the hope that I will get a handle on the characters in the process would do wonders for my self-esteem. Still, it seems like one of those Gateway Moments in Writing similar to Writers of the Future, where the words, "I attended the Clarion West Workshop" becomes the "open sesame!" of publishing (yes, I know it isn't).
It's times like this when my writing feels like The Seven of Pentacles from the tarot: lots of work with no immediate gain and some fretting about the future. And yes, I have time management issues. And there's this sense that I'm starting writing way too late.
July 2013. We put a deck on our house. This is a big deal because it means we can get to the back yard more easily, and we have a sunny spot on the south side of the house that level and not too squishy after a rain.
August 2013. After two years as a part time, temporary employee of the Psychology Department, I applied for and was accepted back into my old job with the English Department. I was "The New Old John." It was great to be back with the English Department team.
September 2013. I didn't participate in the Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire. When I first started harping there, it had been magical. I'd felt like I'd slipped into another time. But lately, the fair felt more and more like someone's private costume party. Our group would dance the Abbot's Bromely Horn Dance, which I loved; but I wanted it to be a time-travelling, world-crossing ritual, and I was dancing it with folks who were doing a re-enactment, and dragging them, unknowingly, into a ritual felt increasingly wrong and difficult.
And it became more and more a thing that I did without Mark and The Child.
I didn't miss sleeping on the cold open field (along with the raggle-taggle gypsies), but I did wonder a little bit, if I was having some problem with group activities no longer giving me the enjoyment they once had, and if this were indicative of an age-thing or depression or something.
October 2013. Late in the month, I attended a Women in Science Fiction convention at the University of Oregon. Ursula Le Guin and Kate Wilhelm were there. Much of the conversations were about what it was like as a woman to write, especially in the 1960's and 1970's. The conversations about gender and orientation and writing gave me a lot to think about in terms of what I want to write. It also reminded me of the Joanna Russ collection at the university's special collection.
November 2013. The summer light went away, and suddenly, getting up at 5:00 to write outside (or inside) became monumentally harder. And I wanted to stay up until 1:00 AM writing. And it became easier for me to think in icons and design stuff than to think lexically and write. So I made a Twelve Days of Christmas card set.
When I think about 2013, it was about trying to make things work.
The first third of the year felt like I was getting somewhere with my writing, and then I hit a plateau. One difficulty I have with "writing professionally" balancing the reality of writing as a business (with its attendant time management and product-product-product) and writing as art that sustains me.
In terms of what I'd call "Maker Art," I was going gang-busters with a Silhouette Cutter-Plotter. So, while it wasn't writing, at least I was being creative.
In terms of The Day Jobbe, the move to English was a good one. And it was weird discovering materials and notes I'd written in 2003.
Showing posts with label Clarion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clarion. Show all posts
Friday, January 02, 2015
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Writer Thou Shalt Nots
One of the conversations that came up during the Clarion Day Workshop was how critique groups sometimes become rule-based, and they start to develop lists of Things A Writer Shouldn't Do. A writer shouldn't use flashbacks because it slows the plot and confuses the reader. A writer shouldn't start a story with dialogue.
This is incomplete advice which leads to auto-pilot critique and writing. The complete advice is There Are Things A Writer Shouldn't Do Poorly. For example, poor flashback use will confuse a reader, but skillful use of it will make a story work.
The take-away reminder is that a skillful writer can break the rules.
Another gem of advice that I was reminded about was how good writing is like walking on a narrow plank. My personal plank is the details plank: fall off it one way, and the story is buried what I call Tolkien Sclerosis; fall off the other way and the reader can't see the scene on the page or gets confused because the writer has assumed knowledge on the reader's part. One other dichotomy was when to use internal exposition verses character dialog to bring a reader up to speed about the story's situation. Go too far one way, and the characters are having flashbacks in the middle of sword fights; go to far the other way and the characters are having "as you know, Bob" dialog.
This is incomplete advice which leads to auto-pilot critique and writing. The complete advice is There Are Things A Writer Shouldn't Do Poorly. For example, poor flashback use will confuse a reader, but skillful use of it will make a story work.
The take-away reminder is that a skillful writer can break the rules.
Another gem of advice that I was reminded about was how good writing is like walking on a narrow plank. My personal plank is the details plank: fall off it one way, and the story is buried what I call Tolkien Sclerosis; fall off the other way and the reader can't see the scene on the page or gets confused because the writer has assumed knowledge on the reader's part. One other dichotomy was when to use internal exposition verses character dialog to bring a reader up to speed about the story's situation. Go too far one way, and the characters are having flashbacks in the middle of sword fights; go to far the other way and the characters are having "as you know, Bob" dialog.
Post Clarion Mini-Workshop
I'm on the train after attending a Clarion one-day workshop on character.
What I learned.
1. I write slowly. I think I am editing in my head too much. The remedy for this is to not use the backspace key and instead hit return and recast the sentence the way I want it. Then go back and revise. I was blown away with how much good content people created in short amount of time.
2. It's common for science-fiction and fantasy writers to be good at world-building and writing plots, but not so good at writing characters. Insert "'Tolkien's Women' Essay Joke" here.
3. My particular approach to writing characters is to draw a picture of them, what they're wearing, and any objects or tools they may be using in the story. And then sort of fine-tune the character depiction with an increasing number of approximations. I need to supplement this method with a concisely written set of character traits, character goals, and author goals for the character so I'm not staring at a picture--instead of writing--trying to divine the character as if it were a tarot card. It will help when I'm returning to a manuscript later.
4. Good characterization is layered. Add the layers during revision. The most common writer errors are defaulting to the writer's vocabulary and observations, and having a character observe things because the plot demands it. During revision look at how word choice, character observation, a character's interpretation of observations, and character's vocabulary reveal character on a word by word basis.
So.
Practice, practice, practice. Which means discipline going to bed early so I can have discipline getting up extra early to have solid, consistent blocks of writing time.
What I learned.
1. I write slowly. I think I am editing in my head too much. The remedy for this is to not use the backspace key and instead hit return and recast the sentence the way I want it. Then go back and revise. I was blown away with how much good content people created in short amount of time.
2. It's common for science-fiction and fantasy writers to be good at world-building and writing plots, but not so good at writing characters. Insert "'Tolkien's Women' Essay Joke" here.
3. My particular approach to writing characters is to draw a picture of them, what they're wearing, and any objects or tools they may be using in the story. And then sort of fine-tune the character depiction with an increasing number of approximations. I need to supplement this method with a concisely written set of character traits, character goals, and author goals for the character so I'm not staring at a picture--instead of writing--trying to divine the character as if it were a tarot card. It will help when I'm returning to a manuscript later.
4. Good characterization is layered. Add the layers during revision. The most common writer errors are defaulting to the writer's vocabulary and observations, and having a character observe things because the plot demands it. During revision look at how word choice, character observation, a character's interpretation of observations, and character's vocabulary reveal character on a word by word basis.
So.
Practice, practice, practice. Which means discipline going to bed early so I can have discipline getting up extra early to have solid, consistent blocks of writing time.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Seattle Writing
It's 5:30 AM and I'm sitting on the Amtrak Cascades writing. Well, OK. Blogging. I'm on my way to a Clarion Workshop in Seattle. It's a short one-day session on Sunday that I'm hoping will help me think about characters more effectively.
The trip to Seattle should be fun, although the conductor has warned us that there's some sort of baseball game and that the (relatively) empty car will fill to capacity once we get to Tacoma. So I should probably write now while I have the luxury of a table to myself. (And while the wi-fi is still good.)
Linda, an old Reed Psychology friend, is planning to meet me at the station, and we'll catch up. I will try to connect with other Seattle friends at Olympic Pizza this evening.
The trip to Seattle should be fun, although the conductor has warned us that there's some sort of baseball game and that the (relatively) empty car will fill to capacity once we get to Tacoma. So I should probably write now while I have the luxury of a table to myself. (And while the wi-fi is still good.)
Linda, an old Reed Psychology friend, is planning to meet me at the station, and we'll catch up. I will try to connect with other Seattle friends at Olympic Pizza this evening.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Weekend Updates
On the Blogging front: I still wanted to post about Smith Rock, but I haven't yet... Eastern Oregon last week was nice -- we managed to see Mercury over the Three Sisters.
The Blogger app I've been using seems to be losing entries that I leave in mid-edit. It's been a busy week, and I've been trying to blog between chores, errands, and other things. Oh well, on to ...
On the dreams front: I dreamed that our house was a larger than it really is. in the dream, we hadn't noticed that there was a much larger, highly peaked outer shell around the part of the house that we live in. Mark and I found a door that lead to a barn-like room. Lots of rough wooden beams and shadowy dark browns (In waking life, I'm reminded of the Eugene Bijou theatre, a converted church).
We thought it would be an excellent space to have a gathering, and the next thing I knew, there was a congregation of people. There was a professor type expounding on something (possibly Celtic culture, since I'm reading a archaeologic history book on Celts). The next thing I knew, we were shuffling in a kind of circle dance, singing and chanting something like "Dodie dodie, cu cu cu; dodie dodie, cu cu cu cu." (I remembered the words a little more clearly the other day, but I've lost that post).
Everyone but me and a youngish man, who was (un)dressed like a Faun, was circling clockwise. Mr. Faun was encouraging everyone to look into each others' eyes and I had the strongest feeling of being a stone in the middle of a small stream.
I guess I should look up "extra secret door in one's house." Usually when I dream about houses, they're someone else's or else they are (non-existant) family mansions (with a confusing number of oddly connected rooms).
In a different dream, my sister was keeping a pet sloth in a toilet. The poor thing was standing in the water and couldn't figure out how to get out of the bowl; its claws couldn't get a grip on the rim. I helped it out by giving it a wooden dowel to grab. Lately my sister has most definitely been doing dream time as a symbol, but I haven't figured that one out yet. At least the sloth wasn't a raccoon.
On the design front: I finally printed out a kind of shadow box for Julie's birthday. She's seen it over Skype, and now I need to mail it to her.
On the writing front: I submitted the re-write for a story that will appear in "On The Premises #19." The editors really like the world-building in the story. I'm glad that I found a home for it so quickly.
I've also put some finishing touches on a story I intend to submit to The Wordos. We'll see how it goes. I started writing it based on a photo of a partially submerged temple being visited by people in boats, so the manuscript has a strong milieu and idea-story feel to it.
I've also signed up for a one-day Clarion West workshop focusing on character development. I was looking at two of my short story sales, "Up" and "The Gear Master's Wife" and realized both main characters are flat-affect, late-20's men with recently dead family members. Since I don't want to fall into the dead-dogs-and-moms territory of Disney, I'm hoping the workshop will help expand my ability to write interesting characters.
I wish the workshop was in Eugene -- I'll easily spend twice as much time traveling to the workshop as I will participating in it. As soon as I receive confirmation that I'm in, I'll do a cost analysis on car versus train.
The Blogger app I've been using seems to be losing entries that I leave in mid-edit. It's been a busy week, and I've been trying to blog between chores, errands, and other things. Oh well, on to ...
On the dreams front: I dreamed that our house was a larger than it really is. in the dream, we hadn't noticed that there was a much larger, highly peaked outer shell around the part of the house that we live in. Mark and I found a door that lead to a barn-like room. Lots of rough wooden beams and shadowy dark browns (In waking life, I'm reminded of the Eugene Bijou theatre, a converted church).
We thought it would be an excellent space to have a gathering, and the next thing I knew, there was a congregation of people. There was a professor type expounding on something (possibly Celtic culture, since I'm reading a archaeologic history book on Celts). The next thing I knew, we were shuffling in a kind of circle dance, singing and chanting something like "Dodie dodie, cu cu cu; dodie dodie, cu cu cu cu." (I remembered the words a little more clearly the other day, but I've lost that post).
Everyone but me and a youngish man, who was (un)dressed like a Faun, was circling clockwise. Mr. Faun was encouraging everyone to look into each others' eyes and I had the strongest feeling of being a stone in the middle of a small stream.
I guess I should look up "extra secret door in one's house." Usually when I dream about houses, they're someone else's or else they are (non-existant) family mansions (with a confusing number of oddly connected rooms).
In a different dream, my sister was keeping a pet sloth in a toilet. The poor thing was standing in the water and couldn't figure out how to get out of the bowl; its claws couldn't get a grip on the rim. I helped it out by giving it a wooden dowel to grab. Lately my sister has most definitely been doing dream time as a symbol, but I haven't figured that one out yet. At least the sloth wasn't a raccoon.
On the design front: I finally printed out a kind of shadow box for Julie's birthday. She's seen it over Skype, and now I need to mail it to her.
On the writing front: I submitted the re-write for a story that will appear in "On The Premises #19." The editors really like the world-building in the story. I'm glad that I found a home for it so quickly.
I've also put some finishing touches on a story I intend to submit to The Wordos. We'll see how it goes. I started writing it based on a photo of a partially submerged temple being visited by people in boats, so the manuscript has a strong milieu and idea-story feel to it.
I've also signed up for a one-day Clarion West workshop focusing on character development. I was looking at two of my short story sales, "Up" and "The Gear Master's Wife" and realized both main characters are flat-affect, late-20's men with recently dead family members. Since I don't want to fall into the dead-dogs-and-moms territory of Disney, I'm hoping the workshop will help expand my ability to write interesting characters.
I wish the workshop was in Eugene -- I'll easily spend twice as much time traveling to the workshop as I will participating in it. As soon as I receive confirmation that I'm in, I'll do a cost analysis on car versus train.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)