I read a post today over on Literary Lab about a guy who quit his job and traveled the world, dancing badly in every country he went to while video taping it. Then he wrote a book about it. David Malasarn had this to say about the experience:

This video reminded me that, no matter what you choose to do, no matter how stupid it is, if you do it with passion, joy, and love, other people will be able to participate in that dream.

I encourage you to drop over to the site and check out the video. It was cheesy, but he’s right. What an experience that would be; I’d be willing to sacrifice quite a bit to trade places with Matt for a year.  Check out the first few pages of his book, too. I’m going to pick up a copy and read it; sounds like an intriguing adventure.

I read this passage today, taken from Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. Enjoy.

People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you’ve created God it your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)

Where does your inspiration come from? Do you write in the mornings or the evenings? How do you get the idea for a plot? How do you write such vivid characters?

All journeyman writers know these questions. If you have been to a reading or read an interview of a popular author, they abound. This question bubbles up within every student of the art at some point. What is often missing, and what even the talented author often cannot articulate to words, is the real question: Where, for you, do your inventions begin and how do you recognize them?

For each author, this is different. But essential to the process for every author is analysis. If you do not look, if you do not see, if you do not stop to polish an idea, then how can you recognize dusty gem from dusty rock? Thus, you must begin by finding a strategy that causes you to dig into everything you see, to be curious about every experience of your day.

I’m taking a course on creative writing, and ran across this passage about the importance of journals as an intimate, vital friend to the writer. Enjoy.

Keep the journal regularly, at least at first. It doesn’t matter what you write and it doesn’t matter very much how much, but it does matter that you make a steady habit of writing. A major advantage of keeping a journal regularly is that it will put you in the habit of observing in words. If you know at dawn that you are committed to writing so many words before dusk, you will half-consciously tell the story of your day to yourself as you live it, finding a phrase to catch whatever catches your eye. When that habit is established, you’ll begin to find that whatever invites your attention or sympathy, your anger or curiosity, may be the beginning of invention. Whoever catches your attention may be the beginning of a character.
Writing Fiction, by Janet Burroway

Besides some beautiful typography, breathtaking prose, and great delivery, what does this prose by Taylor Mali, presented by Ronnie Bruce, have going for it?

It touches on some cords that should be embedded at the heart of any writer’s strategy and writing voice. It touches on principles that should be embedded at the heart of any American. And, it captures the essence of powerful speaking,  powerful writing, and the need for proper, logical, rational, and thorough education.

Enjoy.

Yes, it’s that time of year again: The month when writers everywhere suddenly loose their mojo and forget how to type letters that accumulate into words.

I was over on Lylurn Enclave and found this lament about writer’s block:

So I’ve been stuck for three days, haven’t written a word. They just wouldn’t come out.

I’m sure none of these will be a paradigm shift for established writers, but I find that confirmation other writers are using a tool encourages me to try them too. Here are some of the ones I’ve employed to success against the November Beast of Writerly Agony:

• Surf the web for images that fit my story; get inspired about some character or locale and write on it for a bit;  flesh out some back story
• Write legends about their great uncles or long dead warriors or cultures they idolize or despise
• Rewrite the current chapter from an antagonist’s POV or a minor character’s ( I tend to neglect the villains most)
• Have a written conversation (because that way it’s not crazy) with one of my characters, if two of them are particularly caustic together, talk to them both at the same time; ask how the story is going and what they think I should do (then do the exact opposite of course)
• Pull out the mood music, get some music that really gets me brooding or pumped up; write whatever comes to mind–poetry, battle scenes, crap that won’t be in the book, who cares
• Start the next book. I know that can sound absurd, but often I write books in series out of order. It gives me great insight to where I want the characters to go in the future (and if they should even live this book).
• Pull out one of my favorite books and read the passages I love most; find some technique or characterization that just absolutely works, get inspired, and then make my current sucky scene work like that (maybe even insert a new scene to do it).

There you have it. The wulfish cure to Black November.

Wow, I realize this is a comic, but what an amazing idea for fleshing out stories.

You could use this for plot arcs, character interactions, themes, and just about anything within a novel.

It looks like a bit of work, but the end result is a wonderful map of the story line and characters, useful for analyzing even the worst sort of story problems.

Here’s the low down from NaNo town.

October Recap

Planned events

Twinergy Outline:  I stumbled and fell. I struggled with this all month, but still can’t nail down the middle in any impressive way. This is very bothersome, but sometimes you can’t rush these things. So I have no idea what I’m writing for NaNo (and four days late  )

Book reviews. Took an unexpected business trip this month, so it ate up my hobby time. I will shoot to get these reviews in December instead.

Unplanned

Billboards: A short story about a trucker who gets guidance during a rough time by a most unexpected source–billboards on the side of the road.
Some great potential here!

Water: Prose about a boy fascinated to death with water.
Very lyrical piece, some great imagery.

Gut Feeling: A story about a man who sees signs of his own death everywhere.
A flash with some great conflict and tension building. Sadly, the ending falls far below expectations.

Total Words for October: 5,913

November Preview

Two Poems: I’ll be writing two poems in my writing class. Gnyaah I’m horrible at poetry : (

Twinergy/Other: I hope to whip some plot into shape very quick like and write my NaNo novel this month.

Target word count: 50,000 (yikes!)

Okay, start the cheering and the shin kicking!

So what’s going on here in October? For one, previews. Some call them goals, but preview sounds so much more cinematic.

This month I’ll be finishing up an outline for Twinergy, which I hope to write a large part of during NaNoWriMo this year.

I’ll also be posting two book reviews as I continue the purview of my particular conundrum [video]. What else? What else?? Isn’t that enough for a man with a job getting ready to head into NaNo? Sheesh.

The map is not the territory. The word is not the thing.

It’s a beautiful proverb; one enjoyed by therapists and martial artists the world over. It makes a great meditation, a provoking opening for a poem, and a wise counter for pontificating intellectuals.

But what does it truly mean? Like Smee, I feel “lightning done struck my brain” when I think on it too long.

There is danger in believing we know something of this world.  We live such a short fragment of history, only a wink in the scope of things.

Consider that the phone was invented in 1876–mereley one hundred years ago–and the electric telegraph was less than fifty years its forerunner. The model T (the first combustible engine produced en masse) wasn’t born until 1908.  And computers, ah the viral digital world rivaled only by the television for its invasive hold on our lives, those didn’t arrive on the scene until the late ’50s, and the home computer is a mere thirty years old.

All of these things are possible only because of mass production of steel, an art developed by Bessemer in the mid-1800’s–Henry Bessemer, an unknown name who played a pivotal role in the second half of the industrial revolution.

Our world, as we believe ourselves intimate with it, is only a very brief flash of history. And even this is distilled, idealized, and altered by the men who recorded it. And yet, like those who came before us, we think ourselves masters of history and informed.

Know who else thought themselves informed? Doctors in the 1800’s truly believed they were helping women when they examined them during childbirth. We know now that they killed 1 in 4 because those laughable child’s fancies (i.e. germs), really weren’t so laughable; it really is important to wash one’s hands after examining that dead body and before you check a woman’s cervix for dialation.

The Aztecs firmly believed that they must murder thousands of tribes from the south american jungles in sacrifice or their gods would destroy the world with quakes and pestilence. Yet their sacrifices came to an abrupt halt and the world–even their temples–still stand.

While we cannot become stagnant for fear of our ignorances, we shouldn’t become so arrogant to think our understanding is complete; we shouldn’t think we know things for what they are.

Most all of our knowledge is pure trust; pure belief; pure fantasy — how many of us have seen a whale in the water, a seashell still in the ocean, or touched the moon? We only fabricate an understanding of them based on the preponderance of words we are offered.

It is important to humble ourselves with this epiphany daily so that our knowledge of the world can be tempered by our understanding that we only hold some of the pieces of this puzzle and only a small fragment of history.

For the word is not the thing, and the map is not the territory.

I’ve wanted to talk about this for a while now, but haven’t had anything to say that isn’t brooding. I think The Rejectionist did a fine job of capturing my mood, and without making me seem like the whiny source.

Later, I’ll post a more objective study on the topic. For now, feel free to lament with me on the pitfalls of being carbon based life forms who require food, clothing, and DSL.