One Dot a Day

...keeps the insanity away.  But what if you can't get through that dot?

What if it's not really a dot, but a huge swamp of despair that seeps off the page and into your writing space and swallows up your floor, your furniture and everything around you?  What if that swamp turns into an enormous black hole, a vortex of nothingness that eats up life as you know it until all that's left is you and a blank screen.

That's when it's time to smack some sense into myself.

Seriously, it's just one stupid dot, one tiny splotch of ink on the page that is my outline.  It's just a dot.  I can write a dot.  That's, like, the size of punctuation.  It's no biggie.  Maybe I can't write a whole book today, but I can write a dot.  I'll even throw in some words for good measure.  And it doesn't even have to be a good dot at that.  Just a dot.

Julia Cameron wrote in her book Supplies that when you run into a wall in your creativity, don't try going up over it.  Instead, do what those characters in prison-break movies do: they make a hole under the wall and wriggle their way under.

So that's what I'm going to do.  Just one tiny dot, and it can be a lousy dot while I'm at it.  And maybe, just maybe, when I've written a handful of lousy dots, I'll have the beginnings of a real project.

Not a Jolly Holiday

This past weekend I read the original Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers and it seriously pains me to put the following words to page (or screen, as it may be).  This book may have been charming in 1934 when it was published, but it has not aged well.


First, it probably didn't help that I've seen the movie version a gazillion times and I was constantly comparing book Mary Poppins to Julie Andrews' Mary Poppins.  While Mary Poppins in the movie is stern but kind, whimsical but sensible, Mary Poppins in the book is vain, mean and self-centered.

Second, the use of magic in the book seems somewhat backwards to me.  In the movie, while she's sometimes reluctant to use magic, Mary Poppins makes wonderful things happen.  The magic is a way for Mary Poppins to relate with the children: Jane and Michael.  In the book on the other hand, she happens to have this magical thing about her but she constantly denies that anything magical has happened.  Rather than the magic bringing Mary Poppins closer to the children, she uses it as a way to push the children away.  Magic is supposed to be what makes Mary Poppins such a wonderful nanny, but book Mary Poppins seems reluctant to share her magical world with Jane and Michael.

Die-hard fans of the book may argue in favor of the book's superiority to the movie because it includes so many scenes and elements that the movie omits.  A few examples:

• Only the two oldest Banks children appear in the movie.  The book also includes two toddler twins: John and Barbara.
• Mary and the children go shopping and meet Maia, one of the Pleiades.
• Mary has a birthday party in the Zoo with the animals.  The children attend.
• Mary takes the children around the world using a magic compass.
• The children and Mary go to Miss Corry's shop to buy gingerbread square.

There's a reason the musical omits these elements: they're not exactly as charming in execution as they sound from the descriptions.  My biggest disappointment with the book: the character of Bert (who's not a chimney sweep but a match man) only appears in one adventure at the very beginning of the story, and all he seems to be able to say is "Golly!"

In the end, I'm sorry to say that it would take a lot more than a spoonful of sugar to make this medicine go down.

This is Why I Love my Quill-Wielding Friends

I won't get into the details, but today I needed some tough love with my writing.  Really.  I was being a complete moron but was too stubborn to hear what I needed to hear.

Thankfully, I know a few writers who aren't afraid to talk some sense into me, no matter how much I hate to listen.  It takes courage to talk someone down when they're approaching a writing precipice.  But these are courageous folks and to them I'm so grateful.

Daily Quota

I'm not one of those writers who gets up every morning at 5am and writes exactly 2,000 words before starting her day.  For me, writing is either feast or famine.  I'll spend a week mulling over a project, then sit and crank out 30 pages in two days.

What I'm realizing, though, is that if I don't figure out a way to keep myself accountable, as soon as school is done and I have no more deadlines, I'm at risk for losing all writing discipline.  This is why I've decided that I need to implement a daily quota regimen.

Here's how it's going to work:  I write one dot per day.  By this I mean, I write one scene (or group of small scenes) each day.  No word quota but I'm shooting for at least 1K.  The rules are as follows:

1. Writing anything that's not my book is a bonus and won't count towards the quota.
2. Outlines, character sketches, doodling, brainstorming, etc. don't count either.
3. I get one day off per week.  If I make it through a week without needing a day off I get double kudos.

 Ready... Set...

Monkeys on my Shoulder

I have a bit of a dilemma.

Here I am, writing away at my thesis and I've got these two monkeys on my shoulders.  (Why monkeys?  Check out the Infinite Monkey Theorem.  It will make sense, really.)  One monkey goes by the name Prudence, the other Maverick.  They don't agree on anything, especially as regards my thesis.

Prue:  Write something safe.  Write something easy.  Write something where you know you'll succeed.

Mav:  Safe-schmafe.  Write whatever makes you happy.

Prue:  This isn't like workshop.  You have to hand it in For Real and your graduation depends on it.

Mav:  Who cares if what you hand in isn't great.  The important thing is that you learn something, right?

This argument continues ad infinitum.  The main point of contention always comes back to the issue of my POV characters.  Prue thinks I should choose one protagonist and write just that side of my story--at least then I'll finish something.  Mav says that the dual POV is more interesting, not to mention more fun.

The thing that really gets me, though, is that a lot of my readers (including my adviser) seem to be more in agreement with Prue and I'm siding with Mav. Which brings me to my dilemma:

If a writer decides not to follow a critique or piece of advice, is that hubris on the writer's part, or is that the writer being true to her vision?

On one hand, I don't want to be that writer.  You know the one--that's the writer who makes everyone read her stuff and give critiques, then completely ignores everything they say.  Or worse, it's the writer who makes a point of defending his work against every critique point the group makes.  All I know is, I've been on the "group" side of this equation and it stinks.  Not to mention that the folks advising me to take the safe road may be totally right.  They might see something I just can't see and I'd be committing thesis suicide if I don't listen.  (This last part is Prue whispering in my ear.)

On the other hand.  In my heart, I know I have a plan for this little book.  It's taken until this weekend for this plan to fully crystallize , but it has, and it now means writing the story according to my "artistic vision."  (Besides, as Mav puts it, this way's much more exciting.)  But it might also mean that I careen off the road altogether and end up in a ravine.

So, my question is:  Can anyone explain what the difference is between ego and artistic vision when rejecting a critique?  This is really important because I need to know which one I have.

Also, does anyone have any monkey repellent?

Getting Over It

I'll begin this post by saying that I'm not one of those people who "gets" poetry.  It comes down to this: most poetry just intimidates the beesneezes out of me.  For starters, you have to keep track of all those poetic devices and rules: rhythm, rhyme, form... the overall musicality of the words.  Then there are all those little things to consider: character, voice, metaphor, imagery.  And you only get a handful of words to accomplish all this and pull it off in such a way that doesn't stink.

Then there's the additional problem of how poetry often intersects with pretension.  Sure, not all poetry is hoity-toity, intellectual-with-a-capital-I, but it's a lot easier to sound smart when you analyze poetry than it is, say, when you discuss sci-fi YA thriller.  With poetry you can use fancy terms like "post-modern" or "onomatopoeia" and be embraced by other verse lovers.  Try doing a post-modern analysis of a picture book and you'll get a lot of eye-rolls.  In short, poetry lets you get away with acting literary.

This reminds me of the poetry unit we did in high school.  My English teacher--a brilliant woman who made my college professors look like wimps by comparison--relied on Socratic method so if she called on you, you'd better have something smart to say or you were toast.  If our analysis of the assigned text was not up to snuff, she'd pace around the room shaking her head and muttering "pearls to swine... pearls to swine..."  And every time she was about to say something truly ingenious and life-changing, she would rap her bony knuckles on the blackboard and say "Ladies.  Pearls of wisdom are spewing from my lips.  Write them down!"

Which brings me to the point of this post: lately, I've also become oddly obsessed with poetry.  I've been reading it compulsively (which I never did before) and even--dare I say it?--trying my hand at it a little.  I know that nothing good will come of this clandestine love affair with language, but I keep at it all the same.  It's kind of like watching a scary movie... I know it's going to make me scream, but I can't bring myself to switch the channel.

I'm sure you're wondering what has made me reconsider my aversion to verse.  That's easy.  It was this poem: Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins.

I'm not going to beat poems with stick until they bleed meaning and metaphor.  While I'm at it, I'll stop taking poetry and literature and myself SO seriously.  I'm going to have a little fun.

Book as Experience--Week 3: Space, Part 2

Today's Topic: Space (Part 2: Perspective)

In design, there are two basic approaches to representing an object in three dimensions: isometric perspective and vanishing point perspective. While objects appear "3D" regardless of which perspective we use, there is one key difference between the two approaches.

In isometric perspective, size remains constant regardless of how near or far away an object is. This type of perspective is especially useful in drafting, where measurements and distances must be precise. Below is an example of a cube shown in isometric perspective. Notice that while our eyes recognize it as a cube (all sides are equal in size=the definition of a cube), the three-dimensionality looks a little "off."

In vanishing point perspective, on the other hand, objects appear smaller if they are farther away. Look at the cube in vanishing point perspective below. Notice how the sides of the cube appear to be different sizes, the closer they are to the vanishing points, yet our eye still reads the cube as a cube (i.e. we perceive all the sides to be equal size). In fact, this perspective appears more "real" to us than does the isometric perspective, where sizes remain constant.

How does this concept translate to writing? Three words: Point of View (POV).

Writers talk a lot about POV. There are tons of fancy labels you can memorize: first-person peripheral, third-person limited, omniscient, objective... the list is endless. Books on writing dedicate entire chapters to defining and understanding all these categories.

Thing is, when we get hung up on 1st-person versus 3rd-person, omniscient versus limited, it's like we're looking at the world of our story in isometric perspective. Sure, it looks 3D but there's something rigid about that doesn't feel quite right. This is where Narrative Distance comes in.

Narrative Distance (or Psychic Distance, as John Gardner called it in The Art of Fiction) is "the distance the reader feels between himself and the events in the story." Gardener uses the following examples of third-person narrations with varying levels of distance.

1. It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway.
2. Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms.
3. Henry hated snowstorms.
4. God, how he hated these damn snowstorms.

Narrative distance is the lens that allows the author to zoom in or out of the story. Of course, drastic changes in narrative distance can feel jarring to the reader (think back to our Tension = Expectations Theorem). But there is some wiggle room within point of view, and it's our job as writers to understand it and make it work for us.

Zoom Lens Exercise (inspired by an exercise from Now Write! Ed. by Sherry Ellis): Select a short section of narration from your current project (2-3 paragraphs should do the trick). Now rewrite it three times, keeping it always in third person. The first time, zoom in so close, you can practically see your protagonist's pores and skin cells. The second time, zoom out and give us a bird's-eye view of the protagonist and her world. Finally, choose a middle ground between these two extremes.

[Note: if you want to make it really challenging for yourself, try doing this in 1st person. I would advise against trying this exercise in 2nd person, unless you feel like giving yourself a migraine.]

Questions to Consider:

• What kind of information does the reader have access to when you're in birds-eye-view mode? What about in pores-and-skin-cells mode?
• Which of the three variations in narrative distance did you find most challenging? Which came easiest?
• Who's telling the story in each of the 3 versions? Who's the audience? Do either of these things change as narrative distance changes? Why or why not?

Let's add one last wrinkle to this whole mess. Up until now, we've been talking about how we, as authors, portray the events in our stories and pull the reader into the story. There is, however, one more layer we're forgetting: the POV character. The information that the readers get from the story is not only affected by the narrative distance, but also by the characters themselves. If a character is narrating the story, the reader will only get information that the character reveals (regardless of the psychic distance). In this way, the reader's understanding of the story is shaped not only by how the author manipulates narrative distance but also by the characters' intentions.

Axiom #3: If POV is the telescope through which we view a story, narrative distance is the lens that pulls the image into focus.