Drains!

The drains are gone! If you’ve ever had surgery that required post-op drains, you know how awesome it is to be drain free. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google Jackson-Pratt drain. I chose not to take a picture of mine. It’s kind of hard to make them look pretty.

Writing about difficult subjects takes distance. At least for me. I can’t write well about anything I’m in the middle of. Can you? I don’t mean journaling, which is one thing. I mean, writing a story that speaks to other people, that conveys the emotion, trauma, insights of the experience.

I don’t plan to write a straightforward cancer narrative anyway. But I could add something to the Frankenstein’s monster story–the stitching and the bruising and the blood and the feeling of not being completely put together properly.

I’ve also got new thoughts on Rapunzel. Nothing like losing your hair to chemo to give you a new perspective on Rapunzel.

Life isn’t where I thought it was going to be. But that is often the case, isn’t 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?

The Light around the Corner

Sending your work out into the world is an adventure–no matter the path.

E-publishing is a widening path these days, but that doesn’t make it easy.

Friend and colleague, Niamh Clune, launched her book a few weeks back, and due to technical difficulties, has had to launch the book again. Many lessons learned, including–Amazon isn’t as easy to deal with as it leads one to believe.

But when you’re putting your work out into the world and asking people to take part in it, you have to keep the faith. Things go wrong, you could take it as a sign that it isn’t meant to be. You could see it as a sign that you must really want what you say you want, that you must persevere.

I’ve seen women and men come to a speed practice, and never come back. Maybe the realized skating as fast as a person can wasn’t for them. Maybe they let the fear of the corner get the better of them.

Why do we say that anyway? Get the better of someone. Seems to me if you get what is better, they should come out shining, right?

Ah, language.

So, Niamh has worked hard and seen her efforts reach the light. See where it shines.

Find her book at Amazon.

Thank you. And keep writing. Don’t let those corners get you.

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?

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.

What a tender world that would be.

In the BBC’s Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes does have a heart to burn. Though you couldn’t blame most people from thinking otherwise.

But the episode A Scandal in Belgravia has a moment–a slight moment–of tenderness.

Sherlock

Sherlock comes home to 221B Baker Street to find Mrs. Hudson held by hired thugs. It’s obvious she’s been dragged and hit. Sherlock looks at her bruise wrist, the tear in her sweater, and cut on her cheek. He quickly outsmarts the bad guys and gets his revenge, but the scene is beautifully played. It isn’t a wild fist fight. That Sherlock is upset over the treatment of Mrs. Hudson is obvious but not mentioned.

I thought it a moment of perfect storytelling.

You should watch it if you haven’t yet.

Belief

Have you ever seen something–a garden gate perhaps, a picture hanging on a cafe wall, an odd, unexpected object in an odd and expected place–that made you stop and look again. That stirred your heart, maybe your gut, a place deep within?

I love connecting with a picture, a story, a random object.

Imagine if something I made did the same for someone else. Even if I never publish anything, connecting with someone through something I created would mean wonders.

When I was 16, I read this book, The Truth about Unicorns. I’ve blogged about it before. I loved that book so much, when I got to the end, I went straight back to the beginning and read it again. Why did I love it?

I don’t know.

But that book reached me. Maybe this is problem. I want to write a book like that book made me feel.

Or how Watership Down made me feel.

Or The Phantom Tollbooth.

Mama Day.

But how does one write a book like that?

I don’t know. But that’s why I write. Eight novels and a pile of short stories, and I haven’t written that story yet as far as I can tell. I believe in that story, and one day I’m going to write it.

What book do you aspire to?

May is here. May is here. Life is stories, and life is fears…

I think the loveliest time of the year is the pub date, I do. Don’t you? Course you do!

Wait. What?

(A gold star to whomever gets the reference in my blog post title.)

I’m taking part in Story-a-Day May. Are you? I’ll post the stories over at The Fairy Tale Asylum. At the end of the month I may be locked up with rest of the inmates…

Do you participate in writing challenges?

*

For artists–or rather for parents of artists–remember Youth Tube at Plum Tree Books. We are always looking for submissions of children’s art.

Synopsiphobia Smackdown

So, an agent has asked for a synopsis that reads like a book jacket. I’m not to give too much away, but to sell the story.

I feel the same way about a synopsis as I did about an outline in school.

But anyway. Here is my dumb idea of the day. Let me rephrase that. Here is my idea to toughen my skin.

I’m going to post my little book jacket attempt here. I’d love some feedback. (Yep. Love!) The usual grammar and typo mistakes pointed out. Does it sound compelling? Should it be a little longer? What else might I add? Subtract? You know…tell me that vague inexplicable thing that I want! (You can do that, can’t you?)

So. Here it is: The Blue Jar

Two best friends, Fran and Chesnie, 16, fear the same thing—Chesnie’s older brother Charlie. They both know his violence and his need for control.

Fran wants to forget everything that happened the night Charlie gave her a ride home. Chesnie wants revenge for that night and many others, and she thinks she knows how to make her brother suffer. She steals the blue jar, a sentimental, precious object, from Charlie’s room and goes with Fran into the woods at midnight. With magic Chesnie learned from her grandmother, Milla, the girls cast a spell to get what they each want, but while Charlie ends up in the hospital, his anger and impulses remain intact.

The girls move in with Milla, a midwife and potions-maker, because she is the only adult who believes them and keeps them safe. Safety, however, fails to solve everything as easily as they expect.

Fran bewilders her boyfriend who won’t give up on her no matter how she rejects him. She ignores her parents whose marriage is ending. She underestimates Chesnie’s need for revenge and where it will lead—from a safe haven to a house of prostitution, from desire to violence.

Thank you.

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?