More Graffitti-ish, Less Playground-like

I have been "tagged." And while this is meant to be something along the lines of a playground game of tag amongst writers, I can't help feeling I've been whitewashed in the dead of night and then covered in garish neon hues arranged in abstract forms.

I was tagged by this guy:  http://misfitmusing.blogspot.com/ who, amongst other things, has some of the most eclectic yet also coolest hobbies I know. Seriously. Old cars, singing groups, and bees. You should check him out. (Plus he is often funny and witty.)

There are two parts to this tagging business. I shall deal with Part 1 now, with Part 2 to follow a little later, because this was already getting pretty long.

Part the First
In which, according to the rules, I answer some questions about a current project.

1. What is the working title of your book?

Well, it had a working title centered on the name of the town where the action takes place. Only, as I started to work on it, I realized that I had named the town after the wrong yearly calendrical event. Which is somewhat embarrassing and I've not yet figured out how I want to fix it. Yes, I could use the right event, but sadly, it sounds much less cool than the wrong one. So for right now, it's got the awesome title of [Series Character] Book #3. 

Catchy, isn't it?

2. What genre does the book fall under?

In an effort to be trail-blazing and/or entirely unpublishable, I've discovered I write in that interstice between Sci-fi and Urban Fantasy. I had an idea once that boiled down to "What if you took the characters of a UF book and dropped them into a neo-noir near-future setting?" Then I wrote on it. Then I wrote another book on it. And now I'm working on another one.

It does lean more sci-fi than UF, for the most part, but there are elements.

As I said, trail-blazer or forever unpublishable.

3. Which actors would you choose to play your characters for the movie rendition?

Jeremy Irons. But a younger Irons. Not too young. Die Hard 3 Jeremy Irons. Maybe Daniel Craig, if he could summon up a little more inner villain/anti-hero. That's my lead.

For the female lead, I'm tempted to list actors I want to meet. Which is terribly unprofessional. But, that said, Eva Green, because a number of her characters have just enough edge to them.

4. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Insomnia (the Nolan version) but with one vampire, a pack of werewolves, a more twisted killer than Robin Williams can ever hope to be, and all set slightly further into the future than where we are now. So robots and cybernetics and the like.

No flying cars, though.

Yes, I know that was more than one sentence.

5. Will your book be self-pubbed, e-pubbed, or represented by an agent?

The day I decide to self-pub is the day I decide I'm done. (No offense to those for whom it works, but it's not my route.) While I think e-pubs play a valuable role in the market, I still want an agent. It means something to me, not least of which is, someday, I want to actually see my book in print, on paper.

And don't tell me print is dead, because they've been saying that for decades. Books will be around, trust me. (Even if you don't, that's a longer blog post.)

6. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I'm still working on it, so I'll let you know. Chronologically, this one has been in the works for a couple of years, but there were other projects and some personal stuff that snuck in front of it.

Also, I tend to work slow.

7. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Ideally? Cross William Gibson with Jim Butcher. If you don't know who either of those are, I don't want to talk to you.

8. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

It was honestly watching Al Pacino stagger around in the film Insomnia and thinking to myself, "What if I took my lead vampire and sent him there instead of Al?" I frequently borrow (or steal, if you want) ideas from other works. I think if we're all honest, a lot of us do this, usually under the hubris of "I could do that better/more interestingly."

Which is what's led to a couple of my projects.

9. What else about your book might pique a reader's interest?

Pique is a great word.

Seriously, though, if vampires, werewolves, and robots wrapped up in a psycho-killer mystery set in a neo-noir near-future (think Bladerunner but less rain, more daylight, and, again, no flying cars - or a slightly less cutting-edge technobabbly William Gibson, whom I adore but would never consciously strive to emulate because I'm just not quite that egocentric) - if none of that has piqued your interest, I'm not sure how else to sell it to you.

Though there is some sex, so maybe that?


Part two to follow shortly.

Muses and Estellas

Most of us know about muses, even if we can't name all nine of the original Greek muses, or what they were muses of. (Did you know there is a muse for astronomy? Or that there were five different muses in charge of the various aspects of poetry?) Modern muses come in different guises. Some constantly inspire, while others may drive us to attempt things we've never done before. Then there's the kind that mostly sits in the background and kicks ideas in our general direction every once in a while in a resigned effort to remind us that yes, we are creative people.

Okay, that last one may just be mine.

Lots have been written on muses - you don't get to hang around for a few thousand years without people consistently talking about you - and I'm sure I've expounded on that subject once or twice  myself. This, however, is not about muses, but about their counterparts, the Estellas.

Before I get too far, while this is a post about metaphorical, literary-minded Estellas, the concept of an Estella can be applied to actual people as well. So if by the end of this you're wondering whether there is an actual, flesh and blood Estella that might have inspired this, well, isn't there always?

(The wanna-be noir writer in me was tempted to write, "There's always a woman," but it occurs to me that sounds somewhat sexist. Even if I can hear Bogie saying it while he puts on his fedora.)

If you don't know what an Estella is, then you aren't familiar with Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. In which case, go out and rent the 1998 film with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. Do not read the book. Trust me on this. It is not a great film and I won't pretend it is. Good, yes; great, no. However, the film captures all you need to know about the book - for right now - without having to sit through the novel's wordy prose and somewhat absurd machinations and melodrama.

My feelings on Dickens are also a subject on which I have expounded before. Possibly even preached or heresied, depending on where you stand on Dickens.

(My spellchecker is insisting I can't turn heresy into a verb, but I am refusing to acknowledge this.)

By way of quick summary, Estella is the great love of our hero, Pip - Finn in the movie, because who the heck names their kid Pip in this day and age? - and the two of them meet through the manipulations of a cold, malicious spinster who does her best to encourage Pip to love Estella, and Estella to scorn Pip. There are other plot elements, including an escaped criminal and a mysterious fortune, but that's about the gist of it.

I like the movie version in part because it makes Estella's influence on Pip/Finn much more explicit than it is in the book. Pip/Finn is clearly smitten with Estella, and just as clearly knows it's a bad idea. He's an artist, and while she isn't directly his muse in the conventional sense, despite the "draw me like one of your French girls" Titanic-esque scene, I think it's safe to say she inspires him, both directly and indirectly, throughout the film.

Yet she is bad news, and he knows it. And still he chases her anyway. She floats into his life at various moments, wraps him up, discombobulates him, and sends him spinning before cruelly stepping out of reach. Multiple times. Each time she comes to him, he falls back into his enthrallment with her, knowing how it's going to end, and willingly playing it out anyway because he can't help himself. He is, after all, entirely in love with her.

Some ideas are like this. They come to us, we fall for them, we think we're onto something that could be really spectacular. Briefly, it is. There are sparks, there are longing glances and stolen caresses and for a moment, just a moment, we let ourselves ignore the obstacles. Muses do this, too, of course, but where the promise of the muse is ultimately fulfillment of the idea, the promise of the Estella is familiar heartbreak when, once again, it doesn't go anywhere.

And like Estella, these ideas are ones we just can't shake, just can't put down or relegate to that dusty bin where unworkable ideas go to fade away. They come back to us, we dance with them again, knowing deep inside it's not going to work any better this time, and ignoring that inner voice of caution because the idea itself has enough power over us to make us willfully forget. Part of us wants to dance again, after all, wants to cling to the hope that maybe, just maybe, this time it's going to work out, that we're going to figure out that missing element that will let it all come together.

So we go around the floor again, even though we ought to send it packing.

There are two endings to the original novel. The first, the original, was bleak and bitter because hey, it's Dickens, and especially it's late Dickens. He was asked to do a second, slightly more hopeful ending, which no surprise is the one I like much better. The movie uses the second one.

I like that ending better in part because it ends the story in the ruins of that old spinster's estate, and that seems far more poetic to me. I also like it better because, while not precisely hopeful (the movie is a bit vaguer on this than the book), there is the sense that the potential for a better ending is there this time. That this time, with Pip/Finn a little more worldly, a little wiser, and Estella a little less harsh around the edges, they might find a way to make it work.

Or they might not, because it is, after all, Estella.

Wilder Writing

This is another entry inspired by someone else's entry. They didn't do much with it, though, so I feel a little more justified in stealing it.* I promise original thoughts, soon.

 Billy Wilder, and if you don't know who he is, look him up, and then if you've never seen one of his films, go rent one (I would recommend Sunset Boulevard, but I have a fondness for noir), once put together a list of tips for screenwriting. Given the number of awards he was nominated for, and won, I suspect he's a valid authority on the subject.

I, however, do not write screenplays. Yet I couldn't help noticing that more than a few items on the list applied to writing, in general, and genre writing in particular. For example, the first two items:

1. The audience is fickle.
2. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go. 

Now, rule #1 might simply be an admonition that, just because vampires and werewolves are in at the moment, they may not be tomorrow (and I doubt that particular iteration ever crossed Wilder's mind), but I think when read with rule #2 it can also be read as saying you've got to put your best writing forward, every time. The only way to overcome fickle is by being good.

Likewise, I think #4 and #6 go together:

4. Know where you’re going.
6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.

I don't outline, but I don't ever sit down to write without knowing what story I want to tell. I may not know all the details, or how precisely I'm going to get there, but I do know where I am going, story-wise. Most of the time. And because the end story has to all fit together, if by the time I get to the end it's not working, it's usually because something has to be fixed earlier on. Not always, as like with most set of rules, I think Wilder's are the kind that usually hold true but still have exceptions. Sometimes a bad ending is just a bad ending.

Which leads to #9:

9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.

You know what else makes a bad ending? When it comes out of left field. When it feels tacked on, unconvincing, there for shock value and nothing more. An ending to a story should be organic to the story. It needs to belong, and not just belong but tie together as best as possible the threads that led there. More than that, a really good ending should build, so that by the time that final act is reached, the reader is on the edge of their seat. It should roll forward with a momentum of its own, creating that "can't put it down" need to finish.

There are 10 rules in all on Wilder's list, and to some degree I think they can all be applied to writing of all kinds. Even number eight, which is about voice-overs, but could just as easily apply to the first person narration of any good hard-boiled fiction detective or urban fantasy. (As a movie buff, I could probably speak directly on voice-overs, too. Specifically with an eye on my favorite science fiction film of all time and why I think cutting all the narration from Bladerunner in favor of that stupid unicorn dream lessens the film. But that's another entry.)

And then, of course, there is #10, which is about knowing when to leave:

10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then -- that’s it. Don’t hang around.


* Someone else happens to be a famous someone else this time. So I'm providing full documentation and disclosure. The list came to my attention from: http://www.theuncool.com/2012/03/28/billy-wilders-tips-for-writers/ and the list is taken from Cameron Crowe's book on Billy Wilder, Conversations With Wilder. Which I have not yet read, though it sounds like something that I would enjoy reading. The cynic in me suspects that the "didn't do much with it" part may have been an incentive to get people to buy the book, but it is just as likely an acknowledgement that there isn't much to improve on with the list itself. It is Billy Wilder, after all. Regardless, I happen to be a fan of Mr Crowe and his movies,** so if by some miracle you, Mr Crowe, happen to read this, please don't sue me.


** Yes, all of them. Even the one with Bloom and Dunst. May have helped that I watched it on an international flight, but even so.

Adventures in Poor Handwriting

I was reading another blog the other day when I was struck by an idea. Not immediately, mind you. There was no eureka moment. Just a thought that occurred to me the next day at work. (Yes, I think about non-work things at work. Doesn't everybody?) It's not the first time this has happened, and there's another idea from another blog lurking in the wings here, but this one first, because it occurred to me that perhaps it's part of the reason lately why I've been so bad at keeping up with this one.

... Though, in all honesty, while it would make a nifty excuse, the truth is I just haven't gotten around to it as often as I should have. There have been real-world distractions over the past year, some of which allowed me to come to the realization that while there are writers whose volume of productivity is increased in hard times, I am not one of them. I do not find solace on the page, or at least I wasn't able to distract myself enough to focus on writing. On the plus side, I don't find solace in drink, either, so there is that.

Now that I've digressed enough, the idea was that it can be difficult for some people to write on the computer because it creates a layer of separation between the writer and the ideas. That by writing longhand, ideas flow more freely, more naturally. And there isn't the distraction of the shiny internet.

Which is when it occurred to me that, back in the old, dark days before the internet and yes, children, before computers - er, personal computers, not computers in general as I am not that old quite just yet - whenever I would write down my general thoughts it would be by hand. My journal, which on some days was a writing journal, and on other days just a repository for personal ramblings and musings, was always done by hand. So perhaps one of the problems for me in trying to keep this, a blog, which on some days is a writing journal, and on other days etc, is that I'm having to process things through the interfering medium of the keyboard and computer.

At which point I laughed until I cried.

Ok, not quite so much, but it was good for a chuckle.

There were two immediate problems with such a thought: one, I stumbled across my old hand-written journal some years back. Let me tell you, if you want a good laugh, go back to whatever personal stuff you may have written as a teen. Wow. For an exercise in both self-deprecating amusement and sheer embarrassment, it doesn't get much better than that. Therefore, writing by hand does not guarantee an improvement in the process. If anything, I think knowing there wasn't an immediate audience would directly correlate to a lack of improvement.

Two, and this is perhaps the more important reason: I can't read my handwriting. Granted, lots of people say this, but I have actually taken notes I could not read later on. The only time my handwriting is even approaching neat is when I'm writing on the board for my students.

So unless I start keeping this blog via white board, it's going to have to be on the computer.


Although the Macbook does have a nice white surface. Wonder if it's dry erase friendly?


(In case you are curious, the blog I read was over here. I think you have to appreciate a blog that is run by someone calling herself Zombie Monkey. Which, come to think of it, would be a scary prospect. Monkeys are potentially ill-tempered and prone to violence enough as it is, without being the walking dead. Also, despite the title, I don't prefer writing longhand, for obvious reasons. I'm not terribly sure I'm a gentleman either, so it works out.)

The Muse Also Moos

(Try not to think about this week's entry too much in conjunction with the last one. Cows in scuba gear is a subject best left for a Far Side cartoon. Though, having said that, I am picturing a Gary Larson-esque cow in a swim cap.)

I was reminded the other day that I live in the country. This is not something I generally forget, especially as the local grocery store closed and the next nearest place for a half gallon of good ice cream is ten minutes away by car. Yet there are times when it is less prevalent in the forefront of my mind, made easier by my home being in a small community where I do actually have neighbors that I can see out of my own windows. Well, their homes, anyway, lest someone think I am spying on my neighbors. Which if you'd seen my neighbors you'd understand is a scary concept. Real life is not Hollywood, and my neighbors have never, ever been the kind of people I'd want to even catch a glimpse of running around in their underwear.

Nonetheless, it was brought home to me when as I was making the commute into work, there were cows alongside the road. They were on their side of the fence, thankfully, but they were as close to the road as they can get. Now, within a ten minute radius of my house (and each other) there are cows, sheep, alpacas, and buffalo. It's quite an eclectic mix of grazing livestock. Certainly not the kind of assortment you'd expect to find in an urban environment.

As I drove past the cows, I mused to myself about the bucolic environs, and how conducive it is to easing stress and such. In short, the usual cliches. Which was going to be what this post was about. Only I realized that not only did I not want to do that, but that it wasn't accurate. While I like being out in the country, with the flowers (to which I am not allergic, or my reactions would be very different) and the green and the cows and yes, even the sheep and the alpacas and the buffalo, I have been equally inspired in any number of places in the city. There is an overpass in downtown Chicago, towards the waterfront, for example, where as a pedestrian once I stopped and watched the traffic humming back and forth in the evening gloaming. Not to mention the half dozen other places in Chicago, or Boston, or even Pittsburgh, where I have done much the same.

It occurred to me that this is what it is to be an artist. My medium is words, of course, so I call myself a writer not an artist, but that is what writers and poets are, just as surely as anyone who works with paints and brushes or a camera and a lens. And as such, our muses tend to take on a myriad of forms. We have the gift of looking at the world in such a way that many things inspire us. Some more so than others, to be sure, but we retain some of that childlike sense of wonder at the world that allows us to appreciate not only the joy of chasing fireflies, but the firefly-like blinking of road construction signs along a road. (Provided we aren't stuck in traffic because of them.)

And so, while we tend to speak of a single muse, this is perhaps misleading. Possibly even incorrect. We have multiple muses, who inspire us in a multitude of ways, providing that we are willing to listen to them when we do.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reread my Far Side collection.

The Muse Wore Neoprene

I find myself thinking about my writing in places where I'm often least able to actually write things down. You'd think, if I was being smart about this, I'd set aside some time before I write to plan things, plot things, brainstorm about things, and all the sort of things that come before the actual moment of typing. That would be the smart thing to do, when I'm at the keyboard, or at least within easy each of pens and paper.

Now, I know, inspiration can strike anywhere. I carry a notebook. Have carried the same notebook for over a decade now. (I know this because the very first thing I wrote in it had to do with the smell of cows in the parking lot of an Illinois Barnes and Nobles.) It is slowly but surely getting filled with ideas, some used, some not, that have mostly come to me when I wasn't deliberately musing.

And I have had enough ideas in the shower that I am tempted to buy a package of bath crayons - yes, there are such things - just to be able to write them down as they hit instead of having to wait until I'm dried off and won't drip all over the paper, causing the ink to run and smear.

But, as I have resumed swimming these past few months, I have discovered that it makes an excellent place to think about my writing. Unlike jogging, or any other exercise activity that's dry, I can't plug in headphones and listen to my NPR podcasts or other inspiring music. (I will confess that, long ago, I did in fact jog to the various themes and montages from Rocky.) I don't really have a choice but to be alone in my head. And while this is not always advantageous to the workout, particularly when I lose track of whether that was 150 or 200 yards at that last turn, there isn't much else to concentrate on.

There is something about being able to achieve that disconnect that I can't manage anywhere else, where I can put my body on autopilot - mostly - and let my mind roam where it will, that I find conducive to the idea process. I won't claim I'm spending all the time thinking about writing. It's a good time to think about other things, too, especially anything I might need to ponder over or decompress about. But I can think about such things as the direction of my subplots, the motivations of my characters, and take them in directions for a duration I don't normally have the time to do. And I can do so without feeling like I'm neglecting something else, like my taxes, for example, or those worksheets I'm supposed to be looking up for my students.

It's a time strictly for thinking, for musing, for indulging in purely academic thought exercises even as my arms cycle and my legs kick. Each train of thought interrupted only by the approach of the wall, and then resumed again as soon as I push off.

I just wish I had a place to write down the really good ideas that come to me in the water. ... Maybe they'll let me bring my crayons next time.

Bus Stop to Nowhere

There is a bus stop to nowhere. It sits outside a nursing home somewhere, and from time to time someone from inside wanders out to it. But no bus ever shows up, and no one ever goes anywhere (other than back into the home). In all other respects, it looks like a regular bus stop, and no doubt the people who wander out to it expect to go somewhere. They may not have any particular destination in mind, and even if they do it doesn't seem to bother them that the bus itself never shows.

As much as this might sound like the concept for a short story (or the initial set-up for some sort of bizarre anthology series, much the way Rod Serling would intro the Twilight Zone) it is completely non-fiction. The bus stop was the rather ingenious solution one nursing home came up with to keep their residents from wandering off. Before they put up their faux bus stop at the end of their sidewalk, when those residents afflicted with wanderlust would manage to slip out the doors, they would walk down the street to the actual bus stop, where they would congregate until someone from the home showed up to collect them. One or two of them might have even wound up on the bus.

Someone noticed that this was where the residents were winding up, and got the idea to put up the fake bus stop out in front of the nursing home. It seemed a much more simple and humane solution (and cost-efficient) than putting ankle bracelets on all the residents likely to wander. Surprisingly enough, it seems to work. They no longer have residents wandering down the street to a functional bust stop. They all congregate out front, where the staff can easily collect them. It seems to be enough for the residents that they manage to get that far.

It's a simple, elegant solution, and the reason why it works has to do with a number of psychological things that are not within my purview. What struck me about it, though, was that it was the sort of idea that we, as writers, are supposed to have. We're supposed to be good at looking at something - doesn't have to be a problem - and positing an unusual "what if" approach. Sometimes the answers will work, sometimes they won't. But it's the process of sitting around and playing with each idea, at least for a little bit, and giving it a chance to work that is just as important.

Somone could have, and probably did, laughed at the idea of a non-functioning bus stop as a preventative measure. And perhaps if there had been more funds for alarms and other traditional security measures, it would never have been built. But someone had the ability to look at the scenario and give it just the right sort of spin in their head to come up with an unusual, and ultimately effective, solution. And then they put it into practice, to see what would come of it. The most they would have been out was the funds and time for a bench and a sign.

The most we are out, as writers, when our ideas fall flat is the words on the page and the time it took to put them down. Like most writers, I have written my fair share of things that ultimately turned out not to work. But I've also had more that did, more times when I sat down and thought "what if" and approached something in a new (or new to me) way that might have seemed a bit unconventional at first. This is how, even though we are all told there are only five basic stories - at least I think it's supposed to be five - we are also told we can put our own spin on those five plots and make them work.

Yet I don't ever regard those words that didn't work as a waste (possibly an idea for another entry) even when they don't go anywhere. That, of course, is perhaps the irony of this comparison.

Unlike the bus stop to nowhere, when our ideas work they take us places.

Value-Added

Have you ever noticed how it's "A penny for your thoughts" if someone else wants to know what you're thinking, but if you just opine on your own it's your "two cents?"

I'm not sure if this reflects a growing inflationary trend between when the two phrases entered into the lexicon, or if it's perhaps an indication that for most of us, whatever it is we have to say is a little less valuable than we think it is? I realize the irony of espousing such a position here, of all places, but nonetheless I stand by my contention that for the most part what we say is of somewhat less importance than we are oft inclined to give it.

Especially writers.

This is not always the case. I can think of a couple of writers who seem more than aware of the limitations of their own musings, whether in giving their opinions or in the pages of their stories. Of course, for every writer who claims to be just a humble author - who may even live up to that most of the time - there's always usually at least one story or incident where they do take themselves a little too seriously. There's that theme, or moral, or just their magnum opus that by the time they're done with it you can tell it had taken on a life and importance of it's own, particularly in the author's head.

Now, guilty as I am of this myself, I would also posit it's a necessary conceit. Somewhere along the lines we decided that, whatever it was we had to say, it was worth sharing. Beyond just conversation with friends or families or co-workers, beyond whatever social circle we may inscribe around ourselves on the internet, we have the need to share what we write. You can quibble over whether the need to entertain equates with importance (and there are certainly arguments to be made on both sides of that, though for myself I would state in strident terms the importance of entertainment), but you can't argue that we feel our stories are worth sharing.

Not always more so than anyone else. For those of us who know other writers, unless you're being harsh - which sometimes you ought to be - we're by default associating with others who have the same conceit as we do and may well be more justified in that. We establish something of an equal footing, wherein we say "Yes, you're good, and worth sharing, but look at me, too." In part this may simply come about because unlike other, non-writers, we're willing to put in the time and effort to get it out there in the first place. While there is some satisfaction that comes in admiring your own work for a job well done, we are conditioned as human beings to want that external pat on the head or hearty "good job" from someone else.

Certainly more so than say your Uncle Bob, though. Maybe you have one of these (apologies to you if you do). He's the guy always telling jokes or stories at family get togethers. Might not even be Uncle Bob. He (or she) might be co-worker Bob. Or friend of a friend Bob. Whatever. He's always got stories to tell. But not beyond the confines of that small group he inhabits with you. It's the same reason someone who tells jokes on the golf course doesn't go into stand-up comedy. That impulse to share it with a wider audience, the self-confidence to believe it's worth putting out there, that's lacking in Uncle Bob. He doesn't need it, and doesn't think what he has to say is worth that extra penny to the world at large.

(Even if he thinks it's all worth it's weight in gold amongst his relatives/friends/coworkers.)

This applies to far more than just writers, of course, as the entire industry of talk radio and cable news seems to run on this. In some cases you could make the argument that their audience values the thoughts of the hosts more so than their own, thereby reversing the analogy, but it still holds for all the pundits.

So are our own thoughts really worth the extra penny? I think perhaps that depends on whether we're asking others to assess our opinions at that higher cost, or whether it's more a case of how much we have to chip in to get them to listen in the first place. But that's another entry entirely.

A Loss of Ideas

I have misplaced my notebook. My writer's notebook, to be precise. Something I've carried around now for literally over a decade (I know, because I know where I was when I jotted down the first item on the first page). In this notebook go all my odds and ends, those ideas that are either about things I am working on now, or possibly might be, or just have no home beyond having popped into my head and my having determined they were worth writing down. I have even gone so far as to color code it, using different color inks depending on whether it's a short story idea, or a poetry one, or for which novel it might be intended.

(Yes, I am aware that I am more than a little odd, and possibly somewhat compulsive. But the colors are pretty, and provide me with a quick visual organizational tool.)

It also contains a list I keep of possible blog topics. And I seem to have put it someplace other than where it belongs. (This is not an excuse for why there's been almost nothing here for the past few months. I have no excuse for that, it simply didn't get done.) I have my ideas about where it might be, but for the moment those are unconfirmed. All I know is, it's not where it should be.

I could use this to reflect on both the perils and pluses of being organized. On the one hand, when you are, you know where to find things and, to my mind, your workspace looks better. On the other hand, when you put something where it doesn't belong - and it will happen, sooner or later - it can result in a fair amount of disorientation. I know my notebook is in the house, somewhere, and I have a couple of guesses as to where those somewheres might be. Regardless, it's going to take some searching for, most likely done while wearing a very perplexed expression on my face.

Story elements can get misplaced, too. I am not someone who outlines, as for the most part I don't find them useful. Before I get much beyond a chapter or two in a novel, whatever I had outlined will be long since detoured away from. Certain things do have their place, though, and if you put them down somewhere else, it can take you off on tangents that you didn't want to go on, far away from the crux of your story. I have had this happen in a couple of stories. A line of dialog, no matter how well crafted, just doesn't fit. Or a scene. Or a confrontation. Or, heck, an entire sub-plot. Though it's been a while since I've mislaid a sub-plot.

Which, yes, I recognize may be an argument for outlining, and one may wonder why someone who color codes his idea notebook - nay, buys different color pens specifically for the purpose of color coding his idea notebook - does not find outlining useful. To which I answer: life is full of things that don't make sense.

Like my notebook, eventually these misplaced elements turn up, often during revision. And like my notebook, once found, they will then be returned to their proper place - which, unlike my notebook, includes the option of the great big idea folder in the sky. Not all misplaced elements get a home. Some, sadly, are deleted. Eventually. Most of them find homes, though. They will end up where they fit, where they belong, so that I can sit back, with satisfaction, and revel in how neat and organized it all is.

Until the next time it happens, of course.

Just Because I Write It, Doesn't Mean I'd Survive It

I was having a conversation with another writer about something that happens in her story to her main character. There's a portent in this other writer's story, one of those "bad things will happen" moments - though as is so often the case it's more like "bad things have happened but worse is coming" - and it got me thinking about heeding the warning signs. I write, sort of, within the horror genre and certainly read a fair amount of it. I've seen my share of zombie movies (some good, others not so much), vampire movies (ditto), and werewolf flicks (mostly bad), and know everything I probably ought to know when it comes to dealing with these things, assuming it would ever happen.

For example, there's the horror staple of the spooky shopkeeper. You know, the one that runs the shop in the basement, where it's kind of dark and dusty, or badly lit with flickering bulbs, and even if the shopkeeper looks reasonably normal, you just know something is off. Surely, having written and read enough stories where this is just the beginning of bad things, I'd know better than to buy anything in such a store, right?

Wrong.

Because I have bought things, or at least browsed and wanted to buy, in places just like that. All the time. (Heck, it sums up any number of comic shops I used to frequent in my younger days.) And quite honestly, as these objects are always something slightly old and slightly odd, they are precisely the kind of things I would buy at a flea market or antiques shop, no matter that the purveyor looks like a gypsy who was around selling trinkets for the crusade.

Or zombies. Never actually met one, but I don't own a flamethrower. I don't own a gun. I only nominally know how to fire any weapon, and that would mostly be the kind of weapons without enough firepower to do anything other than annoy a zombie. Assuming zombies get annoyed. Sure, there's the baseball bat... but honestly, my athletic skills are kind of like my combat skills. In other words, they are really limited. I might get in a lucky hit, but odds are, I'm toast.

As for staking a vampire.... Yeah, right. Sure. My best hope would be to keep running until daylight, and hope like heck that works. Which would not be a great hope, because I don't run very well. I'm not a jogger.

Nope, my athletic skills are mostly water-based. I'm great in the pool. Trouble is, all the horror nasties that are in the water are a lot faster than I am. I've see Jaws. Heck, I've even seen Deep Blue Sea. I'd definitely be more Samuel Jackson than LL Cool J in that one. So unless the terror is, oh, say, a sea urchin, or better yet a turtle, I'm probably dead in the water there, too.

And I strongly suspect yoga's absolutely useless as a monster survival skill.

All of which leads me to conclude that in real life, I'd much more likely be a sheep to the slaughter than the last survivor.

Thankfully all the monsters are staying where they belong. For now.

Personification of the Muse

Amongst the writers and other artists I talk to, there is frequent discussion of the muse. And while I learned the other day that there is in fact no muse for art (though ones for history and astronomy, which made the oversight seem even more strange) there are of course muses for literature and poetry and other such endeavors. I doubt any of us actually envision our muse as the classical version in the toga and sandals, but I have noticed that many do tend to envision their muse in a particular personification.

This may be a practice which is more prevalent among the poets I know. They seem more inclined to attribute their muse a specific appearance. Sometimes I think there's a blurry line between muse and inspiration, because there's been plenty of poetry out there inspired by specific people. Just look at Shakespeare's sonnets. I think the muse can inspire you with regards to having a certain person in mind, which also means at times, if you view your muse as an individual entity, it's probably going to take on the attributes of that inspiration on occasion.

I generally don't see my muse as a person, least not a specific person, but I find it interesting that the past few times I've actually been moved to write poetry, the muse has taken a definite form and personality. I'm not sure why, though I could speculate. And the poems aren't the only thing I have written where I've had a person in my head for inspiration - indeed, the same person who seems to be serving as my poetry muse has inspired some non-poetry pieces. Yet in those instances, this person doesn't seem to be acting specifically as muse, just merely as one of those sources I draw on in my head for my prose.

Maybe some of this has to do with the difference between poetry and prose, at least for me. Poetry has always felt more personal, more emotionally invested. As to why no one else has ever served as a muse before I can't answer. This isn't a scientific endeavor by any means, and as with any art form certain flights of fancy just are, in defiance of a concrete explanation. I could say something was different about this person - but each person we meet tends to be different, even if we form similar relationships with them.

So no, I don't know why, but I do know that now when people talk of their muse as being someone tangible to them, I can nod my head in agreement.

(Would just be nice if the muse would inspire better poetry from me, since that's the form the impulse seems to be taking in this muse's presence. As it is... well, there are reasons I don't write much poetry in the first place.)

Stage Fright

I have performance anxiety. No, not that kind. (In case you were wondering.) The kind that comes from having to get up in front of a large group of people. Doesn't much matter what venue it is, either. I haven't been on an actual stage in decades, not since whatever grade it is they stop doing school plays in. I think my last "star" role came back in the 4th grade. It was a musical, as much as that pains me to admit it.

Other than that, there was a brief span of years as a musician. Clarinet, not the guitar or something cool. In a school band, not rock and roll. Which meant I wasn't up in front of people performing solo or anything. Frankly, being part of a large ensemble was much easier, because then you're just another face in the crowd. Your parents and friends can pick you out, and your name will be in the program, but most of the time you're looking at the music in front of you and not out at the audience. Which is much easier, believe me.

Stage fright sticks with me even so. As much experience as I have in a classroom, in all the different venues that I've taught in there's still a bit of nervousness involved on that first time out in front of a new class. I know it will all go well, and that my having done the same thing - more or less - hundreds of times before makes things go that much more smoothly. There still remains something slightly unnerving about walking into a room full of strangers knowing they're all going to be focused on you.

I think some of this has translated to my writing. Specifically the part where it needs to go out into the world and be shown to people. You would think, based on the largely positive comments I've received and a certain awareness of my own abilities that this would not happen to me. It's not like I'm unpublished. Granted, my fiction publications are more limited than I would like, but my name is out there. Heck, I'm a contributor to a book that's actually on Amazon. (Don't buy it, though, they still owe me money.)

And yet... just like walking into that classroom, there's a certain amount of paralyzing fear that grips me before I can muster up the courage to hit the "send" button on a submission. It's different than a classroom or somewhere else where I have no choice and must go on. It's voluntary, and if I don't then no one else will be left wondering where I am and why I haven't shown up. Still and all, there is a price to be paid if I don't overcome that paralysis.

I'm getting better at doing so. Not great, but better, and expect that even if I succeed beyond my wildest expectations, there will always be a trace of that apprehension. Even if I'm sending off the next sure-fire bestseller where my name will be bigger than the title to an agent who's been with me for decades... I'm still going to have that little bit of stage fright.

The show must go on though, right?

The Santa Dilemma

As it's nearly Thanksgiving, I thought I'd take a moment and do what the entire retail industry does and skip ahead to the next holiday. This is actually something I wrote a few years back, not that any of my few readers here would know this had I not just mentioned it. The spirit of full candor has, for some odd reason, fully gripped me so I will also admit, from the start, that I did eventually cave in and go along with the mass deception.

The holiday season has arrived, and now that I have a very-inquisitive pre-three year old on my hand, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. You see, my little one knows what Christmas is, or at least the basics of it. She's certainly aware that there is something in it for her. She'd have to be blind, deaf, and considerably less bright than she is not to have noticed the holiday push. (Which started back in October. I think Santa handing out Halloween candy is stretching it a bit.) And while we haven't been to church often enough for her to even begin to grasp the religious implications, the fat guy in the red suit is a different manner.

I'm not trying to be a Grinch (trademark, copyrights, etc., please don't sue me Seussians) about this, but I'm not sure perpetuating the myth of SC is something I want to do. At least not as the jolly old elf who actually comes down the chimney. I do believe in Santa (insert Peter Pan allusion here), as the representation of the spirit of Christmas. I think the fat guy serves a noble purpose in that, and I'm not about to argue otherwise.

But lying to my daughter about where the gifts under the tree comes from? I know, I know, every parent does this. And we don't view it as lying. Except it is. Sure, we say it's all in fun. We get to smile, laugh covertly into our egg nog, while they rejoice... up until that moment when they learn Santa's one big con job, and realize that Mom and Dad have been perpetuating a delusion for the past several years.

My daughter's going to realize Dad has no idea what he's talking about soon enough, triggered no doubt by the onset of her teenage years. I don't need to add fuel to that fire. Sure, no child I know of has ever turned to their parents in the midst of an argument and shouted, "You lied about Santa Claus," but I think there's that voice, perhaps subconsciously, somewhere in the back of every teenage head that says: "You can't trust them. Remember Santa? Or the Easter Bunny? A rabbit that lays eggs? No wonder we're failing biology!"

[The Cadbury Bunny, on the other hand, is quite real. No arguing.]

On the other hand, while I don't want to lie, I don't want to face the wrath of other parents down the road when my kid exposes the cover-up to her pre-school classmates. I don't need that, being labeled as the anti-Christmas backstabber, revealing the secrets of the inner parental cabal. Nor do I need my daughter being ostracized as some conspiracy nut when the other parents convince their children that she's just a little weird.

"Which," they'll say soothingly to little Jimmy or Jenny, "is not unexpected. Look at her father."

So I'm stuck. I think I have one more year of wiggle room on this, before I have to start tackling the hard issues like this head-on. This year she can just enjoy the holiday without worrying about metaphysical things, like, what happens when the Reindeer have to go? And why does Santa eat the cookies but leave the carrot sticks for the Reindeer? Is he starving his animals? And was Tim Allen more than just a little creepy in the fat suit and beard?

In the meantime, does anyone know a good recipe for egg nog?

In Your Dreams

I was reminded last night as to why I don't normally look to my dreams for inspiration - they don't make any sense. Which is not to say that my dreams come free of narrative, because they do not. I'm not sure if it's a by-product of my being a writer or what, but for the most part, those dreams I have which I am aware of come with a certain narrative flow. Not necessarily a plot, mind you, because I think if you say plot it implies certain things about structure which are most definitely not the case. Rather, it's more of a free form prose device, where one thing flows into the next without any real regard for the larger story.

Most of the time.

On occasion, I will have a dream that could be translated into a complete story, or that at the very least provides some sort of kernel that could be nurtured into something more. They've even been written down. The ideas, mind you, not the full-fledged stories. So far I'm not sure I've put any of them into so many words as to count for a full story. It may well be that they aren't meant to be, either. I tend not to have whole stories pop into my head anyway, as things almost always occur to me in just lines or even more nebulous ideas.

I'm generally not one to interpret my dreams, either. Sometimes I have a dream (or more recently a nightmare) that even a Psych 101 student could decipher, but those are in the minority. Moreover, I am inclined to think that Freud rather over-stated the whole dream imagery aspect of our heads, though whether he was inclined to think that way or not I don't know. I suspect if he'd lived to see the cottage industry built around the idea that all our dreams have meaning... well, there were those cigars.

Most of the time I think our dreams are mostly a clearing house for all the various thoughts and tangents and other mental detritus we accumulate. Our brain sorts through it, making sure there isn't something useful, before simply dumping it. It might also all just be a bi-chemical byproduct of the brain's releasing various things to help us recharge and relax. My cat dreams, after all, but I don't think she's too concerned over what they mean.

On the other hand, maybe sometimes for her, a mouse isn't just a mouse.

Wasting Villains

No, this isn't about shooting the bad guys with an oversized gun designed to compensate for the hero's masculinity issues. This is about when a villain's potential goes to waste. When, despite the hype, they're barley on the screen (looking squarely at you, George Lucas, for Episode I) or in the book. When the author makes a big deal about just how evil, and powerful, the villain is, or has created a really great villain... and then doesn't do anything with them.

I have a particular author in mind for this little rant, but I won't name names. (Other than George Lucas... because, really, as much as I like Christopher Lee, Darth Maul deserved more screen time.) Mostly, in the case of the unnamed author, it seemed as though the villain had been relegated to the role of sub-plot, and if you're going to do that, it's all well and good providing that 1: it's the kind of thing you usually write so the audience has no reason to expect otherwise and 2: you don't create a really cool villain that you normally would have done lots with.

This was something I thought Silence of the Lambs did well. Aside from the screen presence of Lecter, he lived up to his potential. He wasn't just the scary guy safely in the glass cage. He gets out. Better still, though he is the subplot, the main villain is also satisfying. (Neither the movie nor the book would have worked half so well otherwise. Sub-plot should never completely overshadow plot.) It was also something the movie sequel screwed up, namely because the director, whom I normally enjoy, went for the shock ending. Only the Lecter we all know and love would never have allowed himself to be in that position.

(Not to mention he doesn't have to amputate his hand. Far less risky to simply take off the thumb, if it comes to that.)

Which illustrates another peril here: you can waste your villain with a single mis-timed scene. Something that doesn't ring true to character. At that point, you leave audiences scratching their heads and wondering what happened to the villain they've been watching all along. Hannibal isn't the only film guilty of this. (The book avoided this pitfall, but fell into another one.)

Mind you, some of those wasted villains have provided me with fodder for my own evil characters. I fully plan to steal the concept for one villain from a certain author who didn't know enough to use what she'd created. Well, "steal" is such a harsh word. I intend to appropriate and use for my own ends.

If you're going to create a strong villain, then you ought to use them appropriately. If not, you might want to start asking yourself if your story needs a villain at all, or if perhaps the motivation for your characters is something else entirely. Villains should be treated like the famous gun Chekov talks about: if they're there, they ought to be used.

We Are Not Creatures of Logic

In yet another example of the difference between theory and practice, it turns out that there's a reason the average person makes a lousy economist. We're not ruled by logic. Now, at least on my end, this does not sound like something that should have been a shock. I worked in retail, and I know how appealing that price difference can be, even if in the long term it works out to the same cost - or even more. Yet, perhaps also as another example of scientists have too much time on their hands, a new scientific study has confirmed that yes, we are economic idiots.

Now, I'm not turning this into an entry as to why we are, as people, on average, idiots. Because let's face it we are. Myself included. The only thing that keeps us all alive is that for most of us, our idiocy is short-lived and occurs in sporadic bursts, rather than as a full time thing. My concern here, though, is those theorists who somehow expect that we are not idiots, that we are creatures of logic, and that we base our actions on the logical best outcome.

In the case of the radio program I was listening to which inspired this post (the CBC's Quirks and Quarks) the economists in question were somewhat shocked to find that people don't always ask in their own financial self-interest. Case in point was being offered to split $10 1 to 9 with someone. Most people balked, wanting a fairer split. The economists say that people ought to take the $1, because fair or not it's better than nothing (and I agree, but I can use every spare dollar). However, human nature, or at least a sense of fairness that is probably more societal than nature, intercedes.

Likewise I got into a conversation with someone the other day about the failings of Marx. My biggest complaint with Marx's theories was the part in them where the leaders of the revolution, having overthrown the rich and ruling class (using that term I can say but not spell at the moment) and ascended to power themselves, are supposed to then hand it over to the people. It's a nice, logical progression of the revolutionary movement, and makes perfect theoretical sense to Marx. It does not, however, account for human nature in that most people, once they've taken power, aren't going to simply hand it back over.

Human beings are not creatures of logic. Aside from the grand scale of economics and politics, this afflicts/affects us in our everyday life. How many times do we make decisions counter to the choices we know, logically, we ought to make, because other factors intercede? How often have we done so today?

Woebegone Poet

Despite the fact that my first ever "sale" (which was, in reality, two copies of the mag and a promise of an eventual token check that never showed, presumably because the magazine went under) was a poem, I am not a poet. I can, if need be, attempt poetry and even write some, but it remains a struggle for me. I suspect that poets probably find the idea of a five thousand word short story as daunting as I find a fifteen line poem, but that doesn't change the fact that I am not a poet.

This was brought home to me the other day as I was listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" this weekend. They were doing a poetry show, featuring a collection of their poetry related vignettes. One of the guests they'd had on - whose "Marco Polo" poem I'd heard the first time it aired - was Billy Collins, national poet laureate. Before he read his poem "Ballistics," he talked about where the idea for the poem had come from.

As I listened to him, it dawned on me that this is why I am not a poet. I'm not saying I don't strive for a certain poetic quality in my prose, because I do, but that's not the point. If I see something, or hear something, or experience something that inspires me, that trips my muse, the thoughts in my head are not poems. They're stories, or articles (or blog entries) - something in prose.

For artists, I presume they see pictures. I've heard musicians say they hear lyrics or notes, depending. So this is something that probably should not have been a surprise to me, but as I've been reading a bit more poetry these days my thoughts had turned in that direction. I've been tempted of late to try my hand at another poem, if only because I think it's a good writing exercise, yet haven't come up with anything that is setting off the poetry muse for me. And despite that one sale, it's probably for the best. Because even if this little train of thought hadn't reminded me why I don't write more poetry, a quick look at some of my past efforts would probably have sufficed.

But if something does occur to me in verse, I will be sure to write it down.

Master Storytellers: Artists

When I was a freshman, before you took Freshman English you had to take a test, to see which level class they'd place you in. I won't bore you with the test results, but the upshot of this was that the class I was in had a somewhat unusual teacher, which resulted in a somewhat unusual class. We didn't read the usual books, we didn't have the usual assignments - for the most part. This was, after all, the class where I wrote a discussion on the merits of nudity in NYPD Blue, discussed the incarnations of Batman in popular media, and where my final paper was a conversation between Nietzche and Borges (in Lewis Carroll style rhyme, no less).

But our first assignment was more mundane: the trip to the museum. I imagine this is an assignment straight out of some writing handbook. You go to the museum, find a piece you like, and write about it. Now, if we'd been sent to the natural history museum, it might have been more interesting... and my essay probably would have been on some dinosaur coming to life and eating the night staff, leaving a skeletonized person inside the T-rex skeleton the next day. However, we were sent to the art museum. I do not remember the artist I chose, though I remember the picture. A landscape, nothing spectacular.

There was, however, a story in it. I found one, I'm sure someone could have found something else, and it occurred to me that the best works of art - whether they be from the masters or from more local, less well known artists (like that girl in the next cubicle who constantly doodles on the quarterly reports) - tell a story, or at least hint at one. For example, either in that class or another, I ended up writing a poem on Picasso's "The Old Guitarist." It's from his blue period, which is that clustering of his works that I'd actually hang on my wall. Looking at that picture, there clearly is a story or two or even three behind the somewhat forlorn strummings of the old guy in the clothes that don't quite fit. And I don't always see the same story every time.

I'm not going to presume that anything that occurs to me when I look at it was in Picasso's head when he painted it. If he's spoken or written about his inspiration for the piece, I am unfamiliar with it and (followers of this blog will be unsurprised to learn) not going to bother looking it up at the moment. Maybe later.

Likewise, a friend of mine showed me a picture of a tree. I'd known she was working on the tree, and so I had certain expectations in my head as to what it would look like. I was, as it turned out, completely wrong, but that's fine because what was on paper was much more complex and beautiful than what had been in my head. It was, like the Picasso, something that I could see putting on my wall, and every time I looked at it coming up with a different story behind it. Never quite seeing it the same way twice.

There are a number of my favorite books that are like that, too, where no matter how many times I read them, each time I find something I hadn't noticed before, a story that hadn't occurred to me the last time I read it. I find things familiar, too, of course, but I think the paintings that tell a story are like the books that do so: each time you see it there's that mix of the familiar and the as yet to be discovered, and it's somewhere in that middle space where ideas are born.