Random Neural Meepings

I wrote a sad-sack catch-you-up post yesterday. I don't think I'll post it.

 Minion sitting on me yesterday when I wrote my sad sack post.


Instead, some random neural firings...

* Enjoying my Storywonk class: Making Magic. (I've linked to the cache cause I think they're updating the page now that the class has begun.) Did I mention this class? Lani Diane Rich gives this and another class called Discovery that are related, and that focus on writing aspects not usually covered in books and courses. I paired up with another Betty and got the classes half price. Making Magic is about filling the inspiration tank before you start writing, so that the whole thing flows, you hit less dry spots. Eg. Having a soundtrack of about 20 songs that represent your characters, setting etc., that you can listen to both when planning the book, and if you stall out while writing it.

So that's what I've been working on this week, on and off. Well, I've always had soundtracks--you may have noticed I listen to a lot of music. ;-) But I hadn't yet collected a lot of music for this one. Just general atmospheric--pow wow music, francophone songs, etc. But now I'm trying to pin stuff down, and at the same time pin down my protagonists. My heroine remains elusive. I hates her.

By the way, Writers' Digest sells their back issues as digital downloads (and print of course). Thought I'd mention that for the writers out there. I had a good issue from the library and didn't want to scan the whole stupid thing--just bought it instead.

* Watched Palm Beach Story. It was entertaining, but terribly plotted. What was Preston Sturges thinking? lol

* I'm finally going to get a cell phone. Can you believe it? I've always told people: The idea that I can be reached at all times horrified me! But only a prepaid one. I'm not that committed yet.

* I'm going off Topomax, so I won't have anything to blame Life on anymore. I'm down from 6 pills to 2 and pretty happy about it. It didn't make a big difference to my headaches, and it's had the worst side effects of anything I've tried. They would have been tolerable if they had a big result on my headaches, but otherwise they stank. The fatigue was terrible. I was taking 4 pills before bed, and 2 during the day. And even before taking the day ones, I was ready to go back to bed after 9 hours of sleep.

...On the bright side, I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I missed that last night when I had a lot on my mind. Most of my life it's taken my an hour min. to fall asleep, and now I've got to re-adapt! Huff. Elavil (which I'm still on) used to put me to sleep, but I guess my body's used to it. However, better that than Rip Van Winkleism.

What I'm really looking forward to is NO MORE PINS AND NEEDLES in my feet! Holy mother of a sainted dog that was driving me out of my frikking mind!!! I couldn't leave my foot in the same position more than 5 minutes without getting the nastiest p&n you can imagine. I'd taken to wearing crocs all the time

because the bumpy soles helped the p&n go away, but I hate wearing sandals all the time, and it didn't prevent them, just made it less severe. (I even got p&n in my knee caps. That is the weirdest feeling.) And what was I going to do in winter? I was planning to order croc liners for my slippers, that's what. But that's still cold. >:-(

* Visited with friend Onthatmidnightstreet, who was in town. One of my few in-life writer friends, so she's that's one reason she's fun to talk to. Also, she's very funny. And we had zee girl talk. Not the goofy frivolous kind, but... well, we try to keep our senses of humor even as we moan about terrible weather conditions (cf. The Brönte Sisters, below.)

* Finally finished the first book of Louise Rennison's new teen series. Her first series--about a British teen who can't dampen her loud personality and just has to learn to appreciate it, and her insane cat, and insane little sister--was brilliant. Funniest thing I'd read in ages. This series has a less eccentric heroine, and there was no plot for the first half of the book, so it was slow. But in the second half she starts finding herself as an artist and the book flew by with the usual Rennison speed. Once again the theme is about accepting one's own oddness, of which I approves.

It takes place at an arts school in Yorkshire, so there's lots of good Yorkshire jokes, including a moody boy named Cain (cause it's the moors, there has to be a moody boy). I don't usually root for the bad boys, but he's hilarious, I hope she ends up with him. He's in a band of course and sings songs like "Shut Up, Mardy Bum" (mardy bum is my favorite new expression), and "Girlfriend in the River, I Know, I Know It's Really Serious."

I decided I am going to really observe Cain and base my Heathcliff on him.

...Cain hit the microphone. He kicked the stand. He pointed at people. He even kicked Bob's special speaker with "Wizard" written on it. Bob went and stood by it with a broom.

At the end, Cain came forward and said huskily, "That's it, leave us alone."

...And then they all went off fighting.

Amazing.

From the book's glossary: The Brönte Sisters - Em, Chazza and Anne. ... They wrote Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and loads of other stuff about terrible weather conditions and moaning.  dunderwhelp - A polite Yorkshire way of saying: "You are an absolute disgrace of a person. Look at your knees."


* Connie Willis won the Hugo award. Her 11th. She won the Nebula earlier this year, and the Hugo is the fan voted one (these are the two top sci fi fantasy awards.) She's a history nut, but also a total sci fi geek, completely versed in the classics. When I went to Worldcon (the big convention, which was luckily held in Montreal one year) a photographer (and Neil Gaiman-Amanda Palmer buddy) was taking photos of science fiction fantasy fans. And she presented herself at his booth! She's lovely.

My hubby made me get a picture with her, cause I would have been too shy to ask without him. You see the stunned look on my face? (My t-shirt is from my brother, it says: Chewie is my Co-pilot.)

From the Guardian:

Connie Willis's gripping portrait of London during the Blitz has won the American author a remarkable 11th Hugo award.

Willis's two-volume time travel sequence, Blackout and All Clear, was voted winner of science fiction's most prestigious prize by members of the World Science Fiction Society. With 10 Hugos already to her name, Willis beat a female-heavy shortlist which also featured Lois McMaster Bujold, Mira Grant and NK Jemesin, with British author Ian McDonald the only male writer in the running. Her win means the Hugo best novel prize has now been won by a female writer 16 times in 57 years.

Opening with a quote from TS Eliot's Four Quartets, "History is now and England", Willis traces the stories of a group of time-travelling historians from Oxford. Polly goes to London, to evaluate the lives of shopgirls during the Blitz, Mike to Dunkirk, Merope to the countryside to observe evacuees. Armed with their future knowledge of when and where bombs will fall, they should be entirely safe – but then, one by one, they discover they are unable to travel back to the future. "It's hard to know what to praise more," wrote the Washington Post about Blackout. "Every detail rings true. Still, all of Willis's knowledge is subsumed in her bravura storytelling: Blackout is, by turns, witty, suspenseful, harrowing and occasionally comic to the point of slapstick." In May this year, the novels also won Willis her seventh Nebula award.

"I consider you all my family," she told the convention of science fiction authors and fans. "You have welcomed me into your hearts from the time when I was very young and you have been nothing but kind and accepting and supportive of me through my entire career and my life. I can't think of a better place to have spent my life and I am so happy about this."

How Not to Write a Novel: A Book review, or Save the kitten!

I have a lot to say about writing these days, but my thoughts are a muddle. So I'll start with a summary of a writing book I read.

I took out this one--How Not to Write a Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark--because it seemed like something I could pick and choose my way through, but I liked the premise so much, I decided to speed-read the whole thing.*

Oddly enough I didn't realize til now that this was the same book my friend Swissgirl had photographed for me in London years ago cause the cover was funny. The library edition didn't have this great cover.

The premise: Every writing book tells you different, contradictory advice. But if you locked those authors in a room with slowly rising water, and no chance of escape until they reached a consensus, this book would be the result. <--This is the funny. (Except I wrote it more concisely because their writing, though funny, is oddly stilted at times.)

Here's more of the funny: 

In re using your book to blab about Stuff: "The unpublished novelist should remember that his potential readers are people just like the friends and co-workers who didn't want to hear this stuff in person."


In re a setting where 100% of the characters are white and middle to upper class unless it's rural Sweden: "This will eventually give the reader an eerie feeling that some form of ethnic cleansing has taken place."

In re sex scenes: "Giving a reader a sex scene that is only half right is like giving her half a kitten."

In re sex and comedy and postmodernism: "Any of the following crimes against fiction can prevent the publication of your novel. Committing several will prevent the publication of anyone whose name is similar to yours, just in case."

You'll be entertained, even as you're shamed for your literary crimes. Now here are...

The kind of advice they give, not shared in other writing books:

* When every passing mood is lovingly detailed--a play by play of your protagonist's every passing emotion. Romance genre authors do this a lot. I get Le Tired of hearing what people are thinking over and over. Especially as they think about the same problem over and over and over. I'm all: Georgette Heyer never did this to me.

* Excitedly sharing everything you learned while researching. I learned this in high school when I read Lace II. At the time I thought the author was showing off, but Newman & Mittelmark are right it's probably just excitement. My favie Connie Willis does this cause she's a research goddess. (Mind, it didn't stop her from just winning her 7th Nebula. That's 10 Hugos and 7 Nebulas, boys-who-read-sci-fi-but-have-never-tried-Connie-Willis.)

* Characters who laugh disproportionately at each others' jokes. It's best, they advise, to err on the side of caution. So very true. I have a friend who has sworn off one particular author because she can't stand all the snickering that goes on over witticisms that just aren't witty. Mind you, this is hard when you're writing, because sometimes you need to show your characters bonding by laughing at something together. And then you re-read your own scene and you're all: "This sounds lame." Easier in a first person book when you can write "And then we laughed like loons" and your readers can always pass it off as an unreliable narrator.

* Don't sneak in a propaganda pitch for your idée fixe: Daylight savings time is bad, or the tenure system is bad, or root canals are bad, or whatever. Ya this one happens a lot in what passes for entertainment by political radicals. Sometimes you come across a political comic or graphic novel, and you know it's meant to be funny because somebunny radical has written a review saying it's the biting satire, but really it's so unfunny I'd rather go do a little dusting. It's not good satire if you're just coming out and making your point. Don't encourage these people.

Things I could identify with:

* Introducing characters for no good reason, or for one reason only, or as a big family mass, or because you think you need to show that the character has a mother so there's a "Hi dear how are you" phone call scene. <-- I've had to catch and fix varieties of these in my writing.

* Poorly rendered non-native English: My last book has French-speaking and accented characters, so I had to work very hard to find the right way to tackle it.

* Character's thoughts transcribed for no reason, usually taking stock of his life while watching the sunset or cleaning out the closet. lol lol and lol. Because I was writing a sweet romance, which I don't even like, I made myself do things I don't even like, like Too Much Inner Monologue. There are no sunsets, but my heroine does unpack a box. Shiver.

* Poor renderings of other classes: In my case it's rendering Other Ethnicities, because my heroine is half Mohawk and half Nuu-chah-nulth. I see failure as inevitable and something to be humbly accepted her, but I have to aim for the most respectful failure possible.

Points I didn't agree with:

* Their view on animals was basically don't do them, unless the animals are the ones solving the mysteries. So ridick. They're clearly haters. Might as well say don't write toddlers, because they play about the same role in comedy books as animals. Besides writers like Jennifer Crusie and Jilly Cooper who write wonderful animal characters, the Georgia Nicolson series wouldn't be half as funny without the Angus the Cat terrorizing the neighborhood, and Georgia's sister Libby, who dresses up Georgia's Jesus statue and says it's Barbie's cousin Sandra. Just shows you can't take all writing advice books as gospel.

The only person who can wrap Angus around her finger is Libby.

* They had a weird bit about "the protagonist is not allowed to [romantically] settle for less" like the nice neighbor best friend. They followed this up with a better worded point, that the love interest has to be sexually attractive in some way. I would nix their earlier point, but agree with this one. As decreed in the Tao of Steve: Be excellent in her presence. Everyone is sexy once you see them doing something they're good at, whether it's witty insults, canoeing, caring for someone sick, or speed accounting. To go from Best Bud to Hero, he (or she) needs to show excellence at some point. That can be the neighbor or best friend.

Bottom line:

Oh you want to borrow or buy this book. It's a gas and will prevent any authors with similar sounding names as yours' from getting rejected.

Their next book:

_____________
*I didn't understand speed-reading until I became a Poli Sci major at a university where the profs all believed in huge reading lists. (Unusually so, if people from other schools were to be believed.) The only way to survive was to learn how to skim a reading, figure out which parts you really had to read, and which parts you could skim--usually the examples, and anywhere the author repeated him or herself. That's when you learn that most non-fiction books (outside of histories) are 20% argument, 40% examples, and 20% repetition. Really bad ones are 20% examples and 40% repetition. And REALLY bad ones have a big font, are slim, sold in a glossy hard cover, charge $40, are called Business books and promise to make you a millionaire. #1 Lesson From University: Always read the article version of something if it's available, rather than the book form.