October 30th 2006
Okay, sometimes you buy clothing that is cheap, and poorly-made, and it falls apart and you think “damn it, why did I do that? I know better.”
But damn it, when you pay the extra for good-quality clothing, it should last for a decent space of time. Because if not, what the hell did you pay the extra money for?
*grumbles*
October 26th 2006
So I’ve begun a-plotting a couple of short stories, plus a novel. This involves a lot of sitting down and asking myself questions about who my characters are and what I want to happen in the book and then writing down answers.
The book is pretty nebulous at this point (as are the short stories, but today I’m doing novel plotting). I have a concept, some characters, things I know I want to have happen, and a general idea of how the book will feel. When I ask myself questions, I’m discussing possibilities with myself – do I want my protagonist to come from, this background, or that one? Given a situation, how will she react? Where is she character-wise at the beginning of the story? How does she feel about her life? What do I want her to learn over the course of the book? How does the book start? What’s my opening scene?
It’s frustrating, because for almost every answer I see different ways that things could go, different ways the character will respond to plot points, all leading to different endings. Some of these lead to more challenging writing for myself, others are an easier route (that is not to say an easy way out. It’s a book for chrissakes, none of it is easy). If I take the more difficult route, it might make the book more interesting to write. Or it could be a colossal failure if I’ve overreached my abilities and I might give up in despair. If I take the easier route, I might succeed beautifully and create something solid, or I might bore myself to tears. So. Which? What am I capable of?
And every time I answer a question, every time I make a decision, I take the book closer to being something solid, something formed, something writable. But I also slice away a realm of possibility, ways the book could have gone. Interesting characters and plot threads will now never be born, because the book just isn’t going to happen that way.
It’s exciting to see the book come together, yet I lose something with every slice, with every answer. As the book goes from being a concept, interesting and pristine and lovable but only in my head, I have to give up the book I wanted to write, which was a totally ephemeral concept, and start the book I can write, the book that will take solid form on paper. I have to accept that I will never write the thing that was in my head (to the extent that it was in my head at all and not a foggy idea of an idea and the thrill of creation that it gave me), I will only write an approximation of it. I can only write it one way. Perhaps when I’m finished I will think to myself “Yes, this is the only way it could have gone”. Or maybe I’ll find out I have an entirely different book from the one I wanted to write. Or maybe I will think “Aah, I should have made x happen, when instead I wrote y.” I have no way of knowing at this point.
That’s the trouble. I wish I could look at all of the possibilities, all of the decisions ahead and say “Yes, yes that is the one that will produce the best possible book”. It’s just not that simple. I have to make what seems the best decision for now, so I can make other decisions and get the darn thing written. However all I see right now are possibilities. Possibilities that are equally likely, equally interesting. And the stakes? Perhaps the difference between a good book and a bad book, or a good book and a great book. Or the difference between a publishable story (or the first draft of one) and something I should consign to the dark corners of my hard drive.
In any case, though, the decisions have to be made in order for the book to get written. So I should get back to it.
October 26th 2006
I was talking to mom last night about potential Christmas gifts, ’cause usually when she asks I say “Ah dunno, whatever you want to get me.” But this year there are a few things I actually do want.
Like slipper socks. You know, the big fuzzy socks with grippy bottoms so that you can wear them around the house? I’m not big on slippers, but slipper socks I like. I want three pairs, I say.
“Three pairs? What do you need three pairs for?” asks Mom.
“In case two are dirty,” I reply.
“Aah,” says my mother.
But really, I don’t think she understands how laundry works around my place. It’s not really an “in case two pairs are dirty”. It’s more of a “Two pairs will be dirty, or two socks will be clean but they will not be matching socks.”
I like to think this will change when I have a house with a clothes dryer. One can live in hope, I suppose.
October 23rd 2006
Just got a call back about a job I interviewed for last Friday. Well, actually I just called them back, because they called me back on Friday and I wasn’t home. It was a 6-month research contract doing outreach into cultural communities, running a newsletter and organizing a symposium. I had the outreach and newsletter stuff down, but I thought I came up short on the organization skills, so I figured I didn’t get the job.
Which is true. I didn’t. In a way it’s a little disappointing, but it would have meant a lot of schedule-rearranging in the coming months, and less time for my writing which I’m really raring to get going on again. So in the end, this is a good thing, and I’m not really sad about it.
Also, though I didn’t get the job, the interview has opened up the possibility of freelance work in the future, which I’m really keen on. So a good thing has come out of it.
Funny, I’ve never felt so good about not getting a job before.
Also and in other news, I’ve committed to guest editing not one but two upcoming issues of Wyntergreene. I must be insane.
October 18th 2006
Where to start on this one…I know I’ve blogged it before, but for those of you out of the loop:
I know this guy named Taras. Sometimes you will also see him referred to as “t!”. He’s a little on the crazy side (in a good way, like the rest of us here). He’s an actor and a few years ago he decided that in order to get back on stage, he’d just write his own damn play and have his friends perform in it. So, for his birthday, he rented a hall with a stage, and wrote a play.
I got to play Polly, the girl Friday of Dickens Carter, Private Detective.
The play was a smash. So the next year, Taras did it again. This time, three plays, one of which was a Dickens Carter play, plus a space opera and a murder mystery.
And then Saturday night, because three plays just wasn’t enough, there were four plays, one of which was a Dickens Carter play, all four of which were set within a fifth play about a recording studio putting on a series of radio plays.
What. a. blast.
The thing about Tarasmas is that it’s totally impromptu and nobody cares, so no pressure! You get your script minutes before going on stage and follow along as best you can. There are missed cues and lines, people crack up on stage, in-jokes abound. It’s crazy, and it’s so much fun. I have trouble describing it to people who haven’t been to one. The energy is high, the performers are really good, and everyone does their best to make the show a huge success.
I’m not sure which I like better — the rush of being on stage and following along with the script, or sitting in the audience and watching it all come together. Both are a lot of fun. And watching Taras bounce off the walls and enjoy his friends enjoying themselves — well, that part’s pretty cool too.
I got several compliments on my performance this time ’round, which I think I settled into better this year than in previous years (maybe I’m getting used to this?). I’m a little sad that after this year was the last of the Dickens Carter plays — no new adventures for Polly. However, this may not be the last time I get to play the part, as Taras made some very tentative noises about recording the plays for posterity. I’d love to have them recorded, though I wonder what they’ll lose away from the spontanaiety and craziness that is Tarasmas. Will they be as funny? As energetic? I don’t know. What I do know is that as soon as the event is over I want to do it again. For that I’m certainly willing to try recording. And I’m definitely not missing next year’s event.
October 18th 2006
So every time I think I’ve knocked this illness down for the count, it comes back. Generally around 2:00, I have an insatiable need to get a hot drink and crawl back into bed.
I have to review my article for Wyntergreene and polish it and cut it down by a third and that was supposed to be done Monday. But Monday I felt gross and slept a lot and then did the edits for FPS, which was supposed to be done by Sunday but ConCept and exhaustion intervened. Then yesterday I had every intention of going over the article and cleaning the house pending the arrival of a dinner guest, but I got a few rounds of dishes done and then crashed again, and cancelled dinner, and moped for the evening.
Today half the dishes are done and I’m crashing and I still haven’t looked at the bloody article yet. It’s getting more and more difficult to do it the more I avoid, ’cause I always feel like a frigging idiot the second time I look at anything I’ve written, and this more so than others ’cause it’s an article about combining superstition into magical practice. Sorta. And my research is preliminary and I feel like I’m on less than firm footing. Plus now there’s no time to get my friends to look over it before I send it off to the tender mercies of the editor.
Then tonight I have a class to teach, on the way to which I must return library books.
Oh yeah, and those two book reviews I was going to do this week, but my brain’s been too foggy to read anything substatial. Gotta read one book tomorrow and write both reviews. Oh yeah and the second draft of that article which I wanted to take my time with. Remember how I was gonna do that?
And I still want to blog about Tarasmas and Con*cept some more.
Okay, the water’s boiled. I’m off for hot drinks and to try to sleep this thing off…again.
October 17th 2006
Over the weekend I had the great pleasure of meeting Mark Shainblum, who I know through several friends-of-friends, and by reputation as the writer of the comic Angloman.
In fact, Scott dressed as Angloman for our last Superhero party, back in 2004. There’s a comment on that picture from Gabriel Morrisette, who was the artist on Angloman, and I knew my friend Tamu had passed the picture on to Mark as well. So when he came by the table for a signing on Saturday, I told him I made the costume. He laughed and asked me if it still existed. “I may have to rent it,” he said. (Behold moi, costumer extreme.)
Since I had forgotten my Angloman comics at home (boo!) I asked him to stop by the table on Sunday if he had a minute. Which he did. Much conversation ensued, and we started talking about short stories. He has one in the latest issue of On Spec, which he’s very pleased about, and they had copies at the table next to us. “Do you write?” he asked me.
Aha ha. Why yes, yes I do.
So I told him about my first story coming out in On Spec last year.
Which he said he had read, and that was probably why my name looked familiar to him. What was the story about, again? So I told him.
“Oh! I read that. It was a good story.”
Now, you’ll have to excuse me here, because I got a little giddy. I have many friends who have read the story, and yes I know it was published by the magazine, so someone there obviously read it, but this is the first instance where I talked to someone who wasn’t a friend or relative who had actually seen me in print. The fact that this person was someone whose work I had read and really liked was icing on the cake. In fact it felt a little surreal. “No, no, you can’t possibly have read someting *I* wrote, because you’re a real writer and I’ve read what you wrote.”
So, hooray for external validation! It totally made my day.
And of course this, among other things that happened at the Con, has inspired me to get out there and write more, ’cause heck, that story was published way too long ago and I have to get some new stuff out there. Also I should get started on my (first) book.
October 16th 2006
What a weekend! I want to blog but I have so much and so little to say that the words are just spinning around in my head and not coming out onto paper. And I want to get it down, so I’ll remember it all later. We had TArasmas and Con*cept this weekend, so there was a lot going on for me.
To avoid having my thoughts buried in one looooooong post, I’m going to be writing several short posts over the course of the day. Please bear with me.
Oh, and I think I’m coming down with a cold or something. I don’t feel bad, but I do feel that pre-sickness kind of “off” that’s not sneezy or scratchy throat, but is a slight pressure in the chest, and a feeling like I’ve simultaneously slept too much and not enough. Feh.
October 14th 2006
For those of you who have been wondering how you’re going to keep your kids in shoes for the next few years, I present…
Inchworm shoes which you can adjust in size! They look really nice. Also, they don’t seem expensive (though the last time I bought toddler shoes was…oh…never).