Measuring Your World

Do you know when you’ve gotten better at writing?

I don’t.

Sure, if you’re published you could look at sale numbers, but that’s not he same thing as getting better. That’s getting more popular.

my skates

Anyway, three days a week I go to quad speed skate practice. I used to be one the slowest. Well, the coach doesn’t say slow. We line up fast-to-fastest.

Recently I got to move in the line to closer to the middle. The other night, a skater who used to pass me couldn’t.

I was so happy. Such a feeling–a year of three-days-a-week practice, and now I’m faster. I can feel it. Others can see it. I hit the curves and feel happy.

Next year I’ll compete in Nationals. I doubt I can beat women who’ve been skating for years, but it will be an experience. Over 40 and competing in Nationals!

Writing though…I write and write and write…am I better? Must be. Right?

How do you measure that? How can you see it?

And what do you do in life in which you can measure your progress?

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Measuring facebook numbers here.

Fandom

Unfortunately because of the lighting, you can’t read the sign on the door–but if you know the TARDIS, you know what it says. My friend is edited out since I’m posting this late at night and can’t seem to wait to get her permission to use her image on my blog.

Are you a true fan of anything? Ever written fanfic? Worn a costume of a favorite character? Waited in line for hours to meet a singer, writer, actor you love? Or have you ever wanted to but didn’t because you were afraid of the looks you’d get?

In time for our housewarming party, I turned the door in my office into a TARDIS from the long-running British sci-fi show Doctor Who. I have friends who are also fans, and they loved posing in front of the TARDIS. Other friends don’t know anything about sci-fi, and maybe they were baffled, but they were polite and appreciated my enthusiasm.

What is it like to create a story that people love enough to dress at the characters, to bake cupcakes based on heaven-knows-what from your book, to write fanfic, to make jewelry, to start a band, all from something that came out of your head?

Sure, we are subjected to marketing ploys, stories are created around toys, and conglomerates wait for us to spend our money on key chains, tee-shirts, and other nonsense. But not every story is like that.

In 1963 the BBC came up with the idea of a Time Lord traveling all of time and space in a blue box. In 2012 a woman in Texas spends hours of her life copying that blue box in her home. I doubt the BBC of 1963 dreamed of such a thing.

Then again, creating a story that people love deeply–too deeply? Is that possible?–can end up like this.

I’m deluded and that’s okay. (I angst all night and I worry all day.)

On those American Idol tryouts you see those people who believe they can sing. They sing their best with all their dreams flung about for the world to see and then are told how awful they are. And they are awful. Perhaps you’ve laughed at their self-delusion. Perhaps you’ve cringed.

Actually, I’ve never watched the show, but I’ve seen enough clips over the years to get the idea.

Then I wonder if I’m the writerly version of those deluded contestants.

Rejection from agents and literary magazines doesn’t mean you can’t write–no more than a lover deciding not to marry you means you can’t find the right partner later. Maybe you just have to start asking the right people out. Or go into therapy. Or realize you really would make a terrible life partner.

Hey, life partnership isn’t for everyone. Why does it need to be?

There are the numbers. Pesky things. Number of books out there. Number of readers. Everyone can’t be a bestseller.

Hey, bestsellerdom isn’t for everyone.

If you’re willing to keep going in spite of the rejections and the critics, stop making fun of other deluded people. Just a thought.

So. Speaking of deluded people. I’m famous in a parallel universe. See for yourself. Click on the Time Vortex.

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?

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?

Maybe Epic

This may be meaningless to you, but did you know that today was the 34th birthday of Star Wars?

I was nine. I saw it in an old theater with balconies. I went with my dad, his second wife, and her youngest daughter. My father and I loved it. My step-sister thought it was okay–but the guys were cute. And my step-mother hated it.

But who cares about that?

And maybe you don’t like it.

But that film influenced thousands. What if you ever wrote something that had that kind of impact? It’s a bit harder to get that with print, but JK Rowling managed it. Can you aspire to a story on that scale or does it happen with the writer not even realizing what is coming next?

My stories are certainly not epic. No maybe about that. But I have finished story 25! Really it’s a story drop in the world’s narrative bucket (or maybe that should be ocean).

“Stay on target!”

Maybe Numbered

Blogging may betray my incessant need for reassurance.

What else are all these like/share/tellmeyouloveme buttons for?

Sometimes I am envious of writers-gone-by who just wrote in the silence, unconnected world of their homes and then waited to hear back eventually from their editor. And then wait to perhaps get a few letters from readers.

I am romanticizing, no doubt.

Sometimes I leave comments on blogs and websites. Don’t you?

Sometimes I get irritated–does everyone have to share an opinion every minute of the damn day? Is creativity and thought supposed to be by committee?

But then that feels undemocratic.

After all, I like being able to express my opinion.

And then there are stats and the great popularity contest in the cybersky. Numbers don’t lie, they say. Sure. Okay. But they don’t tell the truth either. Lying and truth-telling imply motivation and purpose. Numbers just are.

100 people like this!

Only 100 people like this.

Look at the power of that word–only–and the punctuation. (Shouldn’t there be punctuation for the opposite of the exclamation point? The exclamation point is UP! The period is flat. Maybe we need something for down…? Anyway.) The number 100 is still the same in those sentences, but they feel different.

I’ve been reading a lot of interviews, essay, conversations about the numbers of books–publishing industry sales numbers, e-books sales numbers, click numbers, view numbers, friend numbers, dollar numbers. All this obsession for numbers when I thought I was supposed to care about words.

Reminds me of a favorite book–The Phantom Tollbooth. Do you know it and its subplot of the conflict between the cities of Digitopolis and Dictionopolis–which is more important: numbers or words? And everyone except the participants in the battle can see both are necessary.

Popularity would be awesome. Money would pay bills. But what if my stories still weren’t very good? Popularity doesn’t mean good. It doesn’t mean bad either. It means it struck the right nerve at the right time.

Would Harry Potter be as popular if the first book came out for the first time now–post Twilight and 9/11?

But I really want to write a story that means something to someone–even if it really is a ONE.

I’m romanticizing again…

Sigh. Maybe I’ve overdosed on my own stories. (See? I need that anti-exclamation point here.)

Well, I’ve got story number 12 for Story-a-Day May. It may never be popular, but it exists anyway.

How important are numbers to you?