Speaking of mug shots…

a book cover

Do you ever google people from your past?

Hmmm?

Well, okay. So.

I set my novel in 1985 because that’s when I was a teen and because I didn’t want to deal with cell phones and google.

I used my hometown as a starting point for my novel. But then my fictional town of Lake Belle became something more than where I grew up. The connections between the two are now almost nonexistent.

The novel isn’t autobiographical, but writing a particular scene did bring my former step-sister to mind. So, I googled her name. It was late and I haven’t seen her in 25 years. My dad ran into once while she was working as a cashier. He didn’t recognize her. My dad is like that.

Anyway. I google this girl of my past. She is forever that girl in my head. That young teenager who hit be with a baton and protected me from an aggressive boy. She’s the girl who when I found a way out of the crazy house we were living in said, “How can you leave me here?”

Saving myself.

She was such a tough girl. She could fight and shout, while I just sat quietly with my head down. I thought–she is so strong. She’ll take care of herself.

Googling her, I found her mug shot. For battery. It was a random search and I didn’t expect to find anything. But there you go.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about learning this information. Seems wrong for people’s mug shots to be online, doesn’t it? Feels wrong to search for people too–but also tempting. I’m as curious as anyone else, especially when I’m putting off the really hard work of editing my novel.

She isn’t in my novel, but some of her spirit is in an odd roundabout way.

So. Have you/would you google someone form your past? I don’t know if I’d recommend it.

Why is it dark in here?

my art + photoshop elements

Recently I joked, “I could’ve written a light comedy.” And my husband replied, “I don’t think you have light comedy in you.”

A friend said, “It’s odd because you’re a funny person.”

Hey, I didn’t set out to write a dark, emotional novel. I started with an image and went from there. But I don’t sit down with an agenda. I always start with an image.

The novel that is to be published this winter began with the sound of marbles hitting a wood floor. Just that. No characters. No plot. But I asked, why would the marbles be spilled on the ground like that? And all these words later there is a tale of abuse and violence and survival and friendship.

Another novel started with an image I’ve had since childhood–a girl with a paintbrush that can change whatever she wants. That became a story of murder and jealousy.

And another novel started with the image of a young man who loses the ability to sleep–which is about jealousy too, and secrets, curses, and death.

And another with a young woman putting on red lipstick–which became a story about falling in love with the wrong person and going through hell for them.

But for all I know I could write a comedy. You never know.

As I edit my novel, I’m having to think about some of the things I’ve put a character through, and I think, she may be too damaged to come out all right in the end. Then again, I know people in the real world who’ve been through very real hell, and on the surface anyway, they seem to be doing fine. It’s hard to know though, isn’t it?

You have to find a way to do justice to a character’s suffering. I don’t mean that the bad guy will end up in jail or realize the error of his ways. If you put a character through trauma, that character can’t just shrug it off and be fine.

Something JK Rowling said recently about how Harry Potter would function after all he’d been through–not very well. Don’t you imagine he suffers from bad dreams that wake Ginny up in the middle of the night? Or that sometimes he’s a morose and remote father–loving, and generally good, but a man who needs time alone to brood. Wouldn’t his children sense his sadness at all his losses?

JK Rowling doesn’t put that in the books, but she doesn’t make it an impossibility either.

My character is going through a dark time, and I’m not sure how she’s going to be.

I’m not sure what it is about me that compels me to write stories of loss and trauma, and I can’t afford the therapy to find out.

You? Are your stories mostly happy? Sad? Funny? Why is that do you think?

Bad Stories and Good Fans

The other night I watch a documentary about a movie I haven’t seen. Well, the title Best Worst Movie caught my attention. And I had, at least, heard of Troll 2.

Have you seen Troll 2? Even if you haven’t, watch the documentary.

At one point, people in the film talk about how something badly done is still great if done with passion, love. Though they also say that is true of a film, not of a book.

I’ve heard people say a movie is so bad it’s good.

Does anyone ever say that about a book?

Do you love a movie that is so bad it’s good? A book? Anything?

Another moment from the documentary I could discuss–if someone were hear to listen to me!–was George Hardy’s reaction to the horror film fans. (Hardy is a dentist who starred in Troll 2.) Now, I don’t like horror films, but I love those crazy fans. Sci-fi fans, horror fans, fans who wait in lines, fans who collect insane amounts of memorabilia. They have passion. I don’t like apathy, and these folks are not apathetic. Even if I don’t get what they love, at least they love.

Good for them.

The other day someone on facebook–good ol’ facebook–posted about how he thought people who write fanfic are wasting their time. Well, okay. That’s his opinion. But he said he spent a lot of time trying to convince the fanfic writers how wrong they were to write their fan stories.

Would you try to convince these people they’re wasting their time? Is that true? Have you ever written fan fiction?

If you had (have) a novel published, and someone out there loved your characters so much, that person wrote more stories about the world you created, how would you feel? (And I don’t mean people who steal your work and call it their own. Maybe you still call it stealing, but if they’re honest about–hey, this is fan fiction–would you be bothered or flattered?

I’d be flattered.

Brimming Over

don’t stay in the cup

Sometimes the mind just brims over with ideas. Do you ever have trouble deciding what to focus on or what to pursue?

I’m going to pursue as many as I can.

One is the idea of a princess detective. I want to try to write a princess that isn’t what most people think. I’m writing about her over at The Fairy Tale Asylum.

Another idea goes back to my love of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Agent Dale Cooper. Cooper is one of my most favorite characters on television ever. Twice readers have said that my writing reminded them of Twin Peaks! I don’t know why since I don’t have a murder nor do I write about the northwest, logging, or the FBI–but my character do drink a lot of coffee.

Anyway, I’ve started another blog for a character in love with Agent Dale Cooper and determined to find him in the real world. For her travels and travails, read searching for Agent Dale Cooper. If you want to help her find her man, feel free to leave a comment.

I’ve got an art show coming in October as well. Projects will be posted over at Words Are Art.

And finally, there is always facebook.

What projects are you juggling in life?

The Nicest Guy!

Because of facebook, I now know that a certain individual from my hometown is having serious health problems. He and I are not facebook friends, but we’ve known each other since we were five. Well, he was five and I was four.

Anyway. On facebook a mutual friend posted about his illness and asked people to pray for him, and she added, “He’s the nicest guy you could ever meet.”

And I, perhaps a bit ungraciously, thought, “No, he isn’t.”

Not that you shouldn’t pray for him if you believe in that sort of thing, but there is a reason why I’m not facebook friends with him even though thanks to the alphabet we sat next to each other for years in school. I’ve long though him a jerk.

Not that he doesn’t have family that loves him. He isn’t evil or anything. If prayer works then by all means he should be prayed for. I mean, if you believe in prayer, do you have to have a “nice” measurement to decide who to pray for? Obviously he has been nice to some people.

Of course, facebook is a natural habitat for hyperbole. Exclamation marks are the rabbits of the social networking!

But I was thinking about character and who we like and who we don’t the other day as I edited novel number one. In the story is a guy who is kind of a jerk. He isn’t a truly bad guy (like the antagonist). He tries to do some good things..while still being kind of a jerk. And I love him. And my protagonist grows to like him too.

Part of me thought…some readers will be annoyed that she likes this guy. He’s a jerk! She should slap him! Yeah…probably…but still…deep down he’s a nice guy.

The nicest guy you’d ever want to meet!

Characters that are too nice are boring, aren’t they?

But I wonder if this novel is ever read by anyone else, how they’ll see this guy. Will they find him oddly charming or a smarmy jerk?

You could pray for him, of course. But as the creator of my little world, I’m not going to intervene.

Still Thinking about Hitler

Okay, I’m not exactly thinking about Hitler.

But the last post discussed the idea of killing in a time traveling sense, which meant if-this-then-this thinking.

Writers do this kind of thinking all the time. If I have my character go here instead of there or say that instead of this…

And if you’ve written the story and go back and rewrite particular scenes, well, what you change has ramifications for the rest of the plot.

I decided a character didn’t have enough motivation to visit her brother in the hospital. She certainly feels no sympathy for him. Finally, I figured out why she would risk seeing her brother when she obviously shouldn’t…but now I’ve got to change little moments throughout the entire manuscript.

So in a way, if you go back in time and step on a butterfly, you do change the future. And if go back in your manuscript and send a character to steal a lock of her brother’s hair, you change your plot.

Kill the Ones They Love

a different end for the 9th Doctor

Fans are a mixed blessing. I’ve been reading about True Fans and I’ve been reading commentary by the fans of Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Torchwood. And it seems there’s a lesson in there about Fan Rage.

Fan Rage may be more prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy genres sicne they’re the genres in which fans dress up as characters–truly inhabiting that character and walking public streets in the character’s clothes and attitude. So the writer who kills off that character may never be forgiven.

Now, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got sick of Holmes and killed him off–only to have to bring him back to life to satisfy Fan Demand. But I’m not really talking about writers who come to hate their creation and commit murder to liberate themselves. That’s another issue.

No. I mean writers who create a story, see what has to happen to follow their vision of the story, and killing characters accordingly. J.K. Rowling kills off loved characters. Russell T. Davies killed off more than one beloved Torchwood character–and he is still getting grief for it.

Some fans refuse to watch Doctor Who because Rose Tyler was no longer the companion or because David Tennant regenerated into Matt Smith or because Russell T Davies left the show to Steven Moffat. For some fans it isn’t a matter of they just don’t like the show anymore. The vitriol spewed at Davies for killing certain Torchwood characters is amazing. They talk about Davies as if he roams cities to suck the blood of pretty children. They haven’t even seen anything past the death of “their” character because they are so angry.

And Davies wasn’t trying to get rid of anyone. He believed that the death of this or that character made for a stronger story. Fan Rage seems to prove him right, doesn’t it? Who wants to kill off a character and get a big blah, “meh.”

But these fans won’t watch his show anymore.

Are they True Fans? Do True Fans stick by you no matter what? Or do they kidnap your imagination? How beholden are you to fans who love, LOVE, a character?

Or forget characters. Think of stories. How many writers (singers, actors, artists) begin in one genre, change genre, and then must suffer the outrage? How dare you?

Oh well.

Over at The Imaginary Lake I’ve posted a few first chapters of the different novels I’ve written over the years. Some stories I’ve written have magic–I’ll call it magic though I’m not sure that is the word I really want–and some a straightforward stories without one drop of hocus-pocus. One story is a dragon and quest adventure. Another is a dark emotional magical tangle.

Not sure what fans–should I have some expect–but all readers are most appreciated.

Have you ever been angry at a writer for changing their style or killing a favorite character? Did you ever get over it?

Coffee, Action Figures, and Love

Yes, my David Lynch coffee and my Captain Jack Harkness action figure

The other day one of my students (remember, my students are all adults) said (with affection) that I was a child inside. This was because I said I was going to the midnight release of the last Harry Potter film.

Since I don’t have any friends who will stay up that late, I’m going on my own–as I’ve done four other times. I went to the midnight release of the last book too.

A few weeks ago I agreed to pay extra money every month so that I could get Starz and see the new Torchwood on Starz.

Oh. And I keep an action figure (usually of Captain Jack Harkness) to take pictures of in different places when I’m out. And these pictures often involve cups of coffee. My son, so far, thinks this is a normal thing to do.

Sometimes I get flak acting this way at my age.

Isn’t Harry Potter for children?
You keep an action figure in your purse? Why? (And “why” is asked in a way that means the speaker isn’t interested in understanding the answer, they just want you to know they think you’re doing something you shouldn’t.)

I also spend an inordinate amount of time making stuff up and not cleaning the apartment.

But you’re not published?

Well, I want to create characters other people love as much as I love Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman. Or Harley Wescott and Lilith Bascombe in The Truth about Unicorns.

I love people who dress up as characters and wait in lines for days. People will say, “Don’t they have anything better to do?” To which I’m tempted ask, “And what better thing are you doing with your life exactly?” What is better if the alternative is staying cool and bored?

Of everything that might be wrong with my writing (odd sentence structure,let’s say, or incoherent plot perhaps), the one thing I really want are characters that stay with people. Characters you’d want to hear from again. Characters people would wait in line for or even want to carry around in a purse.

Not there yet.

What characters would you wait in line for a chance to meet again?

High School, Facebook, and Who the Hell Am I Anyway?

Former high school friends find me on facebook. This happens to everyone who ventures onto fb-land. Maybe this makes you happy.

Most of the people who “friend” me, are nice people. They never did me any particular harm back in school. In some ways, catching up on their lives is good.

But here is the thing. I didn’t lose touch with most of them. No. Lose sounds so accidental, doesn’t it? Well, when I was 2 months away from turning 18, I packed my bags, got on a plane, and looked back reluctantly. I stayed in touch with one friend. One. We’ve stayed in touch for 20 years because she means an entire world to me.

Everyone else, no matter how nice they are, just reminds me of those high school years.

Did you like high school? I don’t understand people who liked high school. I’m 42, and still, to this day, when in my hometown I feel pressure on my chest, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to be unable to leave. This irrational fear lurks in my mind that one day, no matter how far I go, I will end up back there. In which I shall go mad and drink myself to death.

But my hometown helped make me the writer I am today. So. Make of that what you will. I’m reading If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland. So far, so good. She mentions how our personalities are reflected in our writing.

A college friend has a published novel out,(you should read it!), and she mentioned to me how readers would come up to her at different events and talk to her as if they knew her. She, of course, didn’t know the first thing about them. But they felt they knew her because they’d read her book.

Last night I was looking over three stories I’d written, and the mothers in these stories are all horrible. They do terrible things to their children in one way or another. I do not think this means I hate my mother…but should I ever be a successful writer, there is a future college paper that says I do.

If someone read only my fiction, what kind of person would they think me to be? Who are you in your writing? Is it possible to even tell?

Is it just more self-obsession or part of the struggle to understand the self?

To Write or Not Write That Sex Scene

Why not fade to black and leave it all to the imagination?

The reader’s imagination is a great thing and shouldn’t be underestimated.

The comments on yesterday’s post made me think about several issues when deciding whether or not to write a sex scene. I’m no expert at writing such things, so this is mostly thinking out loud.

There are all these categories! Porn, soft porn, erotica, romance… Some people may argue that some of of these categories are the same. That may depend on if you think any a picture of a naked lady is always porn that should be hidden in the back of a closet or if it is sometimes art that should be displayed in a gallery.

Strictly speaking I’m not writing a romance. The genre of romance requires the happily ever after ending. So if you want your book to be in that romance section of the book store, you must have a the-couple-gets-together ending. I don’t have that kind of ending.

And I’m not writing a book, but a short story. Still—-there is no happy ending.

Even if I keep the sex scene in the story, I don’t think it qualifies as porn. Porn doesn’t give two fig leafs about relationships and complex emotions. My story is—-or I hope it is—-about my main character’s conflicted feelings.

I don’t think my story qualifies as erotica either. And what, might you ask, is the difference between erotica and porn? I found this interesting perspective here. Since my main character is male and I never say what is going on the minds of either the girlfriend or the other woman, the story doesn’t seem to meet the basic criteria for erotica.

And well, good golly, that’s not what I’m trying to write!

But if you write a sex scene are you automatically in one of these categories? I shouldn’t think so. I hope not.

I find it odd that people who have no hesitation in writing violence—-using various instruments used to puddle brains on the floor—-become squeamish about writing a sex scene. Sex is at least a normal part of life. Most people are going to have sex. Not that many people (one hopes) are going to butcher their neighbors. Of course, it is probably just such familiarity that makes the subject difficult.

Of course, we’ve all heard—-and any glance at advertising will tell you—-sex sells. This isn’t enough of an argument to include a sex scene, unless selling is all you’re interested in. First, there are people who don’t want to read stories with sex scenes. Second, nothing should be in a story that doesn’t reveal character or move the plot.

Well, how a character thinks and feels about sex reveals character, and whether or not the character has sex probably does move the plot.

But in the story I’ve been working on, can the intimate relations between the characters be off-stage?

The tension in the story starts with will he or won’t he cheat on his girlfriend? And I really want the reader to sympathize with my main character. I may loathe the likes of David Vitter and John Edwards (the list is long there, but we don’t have time for that), but I also don’t think every person who cheats is an automatic sleaze. That’s too simplistic. If I’ve done my job, you might think the character an idiot, but you might feel kind of sorry for him.

And I don’t want the reader to think the main character has left his moral conflict at the door.

To up the tension in the story, the main character may very well be caught. Sure, the girlfriend could catch him by finding a letter, lipstick on his collar, or text message, but let’s be honest, that just doesn’t have the immediate drama of being caught in flagrante delicto. I’m not saying he is caught. (spoilers!) But he might be.

And what I would really like if I could pull it off is to create a conflict for the reader—-to want him to get away with what he’s doing but not want him to hurt his very nice girlfriend, to want him to get what he wants but to feel bad for rooting for him.

This isn’t going to be a story for people who live in a black and white universe.

This brings me to a conversation I had with coworkers last week. It was a conversation that got a tad bit out of hand, and it started with the question: what is sex? Trying to come up with an answer led to more questions such as is oral sex sex or is rape sex. I am so not trying to answer those questions here (we didn’t really answer them at work either–thank goodness), but it seems that if you’re going to consider whether or not to write a sex scene, you ought to be clear about what you mean and what that might encompass.

This sure is an awful lot of rambling on for a story that may not even be any good. But at least you’ll know a lot of thought went into it.

Your thoughts would be appreciated!