scribblerworks

Is it Christmas yet?

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:17:45 GMT

In the house I grew up in, in Michigan, my parents' bedroom was at the top of the stairs. Now since we were a family who opened Christmas gifts on Christmas morning, this meant great impatience for myself and my younger sister Joan. What did we know of clocks, especially on Christmas eve? We would try sneaking past Mom & Dad's bedroom door, and invariably we would hear "It's not Christmas yet" come from the dark reaches of their room (their door was always open, at least on Christmas eve).

To go back to bed would be unbearable, so Joan and I would sit on the top stair waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

"Is it Christmas yet?" "Not yet, Sally."

One year, when I was living in Austin, just prior to the Christmas holiday, I dashed off this cartoon. When I gave it to my Dad when I got to Houston, he was utterly enchanted, and promptly went off, popped it in a mat and frame and hung it in the family room, where it stayed year round.

After my Mom died two years ago, I reclaimed it, and it now resides on one of my walls.... a year-round reminder of the anticipation of waiting for Christmas.

"Is it Christmas yet?"

I hope it is for all of you, all year long. God bless.

It's THAT day.

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:14:23 GMT

So, having been caught, I continue the meme ---

The 'Tempting Fate' meme:

1. Make an LJ-cut post with "DO NOT READ" as the text.
2. Do not select a 'mood' for this post.
3. If anyone clicks the cut, they are to comment and admit to doing so.
4. Anyone who reads this also has to do the same in THEIR journal, thus continuing the never-ending madness!

*****
But I'm adding my own nose tweaking too! I'm guessing you were one of those who just HAD to investigate every single closet and cubbyhole in the house the week before Christmas, so that you would know just what everyone was getting.

I confess, I was pretty good at it, even delving into the secret dark reaches of my parents' closet. There were sometimes packages in the very back corner behind my dad's shoes, hidden by his long coat hanging at the end of the rod. And then there was the high shelf in the closet in the den downstairs off the living room. And yet, somehow, they always managed to hide at least a few things.

Do parents really think they have successfully hidden things from the eager children? Seriously? I'm thinking only a heavy combination lock in a hidden room would keep something hidden from a snooping child!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Mythic Motifs at Work - #6

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:32:10 GMT

I've finally gotten back to regular entries on my blog for The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth. Or at least, begun the process of being regular (let's see if I keep it up).

This time out, I'm tackling the issue of Father Figures. There just aren't that many good ones out there, by and large, so I wanted to highlight what makes a certain one very effective: Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the show NCIS.

You can read it all RIGHT HERE.

I'll have to start drawing up a list of possible topics for further blogging purposes. If you people have suggestions, feel free to mention them. After spending all the effort to write The Scribbler's Guide, I need to keep my skills honed.

Because it is Friday....

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:06:35 GMT

Back in the distant past, before I moved to Los Angeles, I worked at the main library of the University of Texas at Austin. We are talking truly ancient times, when the catalogues were all on card files. Which had to be filed. Now, I did not work in the public catalogue. No, I supervised the filing in the Shelf List (which was a card for every title the university owned, in call number order, including all the campus branch libraries -- it was huge) and the Authority File (which the cataloguers used for uniform versions of names in the Roman alphabet: that is, the accepted transliteration of Crylic names, or Arabic names, plus all the pen names and pseudonyms of authors). Alpha-numerical filing at its most boring.

Now, my dutiful henchlings were all part-timers, usually students working in the Work-Study program. But me, I was full time. All day, every day.

By the end of the week, the full time clerical staff tended to get a bit punchy. The brain would want to shut down. There was always a definite desire to escape.

So, this week, I've been sorting through piles of papers, getting ready to put some old papers that I want to keep into storage. But, I wanted to make sure that I had copied the poetry on some of the sheets onto the computer (many of the papers are the original manuscripts, with all the scratching try-outs of phrases on the margins). In the process, I ran across the following, which was written during the UT period. I hope it amuses all those who labor in routine jobs during the week.

Of all the trials of our times
the worst are Friday’s final hours,
when each dull moment drags its feet,
reluctant to approach the end.
And we who travel on time’s stream
are prisoners of its sluggish flow,
so fellow laborers in this boat,
pass the supplies and let’s get low.

Dealing with Immortality in Fiction

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:33:59 GMT

There was a discussion on sartorias ’ LJ some time ago about Elves in current fantasy. What makes them different than being “ordinary humans with magical powers”? This led to mentions of Elves being immortal. (I'd meant to get this written and posted for weeks, but better late than never.)

Now, one of the things that has always fascinated me is the huge differences between the experiences of immortality and mortality. And certainly, Tolkien’s choices in his works have something to do with my outlook. But I was always left feeling that he had not resolved the matter of what happened when an Elf had his or her body destroyed in some fashion. It wasn’t clear in Tolkien: there apparently was some sort of “reincarnation”, but it was not clear how it worked.

So, when I started constructing my own fantasy world, and chose to include a race of beings who were, well, cousins to Tolkien’s Elves and would be “immortal”, I had to consider what it meant to be Mortal -- what was the ultimate fate of a mortal soul? Being Christian, I do believe in a "life eternal" -- but for me, the eternal is outside the material world and outside time. Which meant, to me, that if I was to call someone "immortal", they would need to be immortal inside the material world. Basically (using the terms of my own faith), the immortals in the world cannot die and "come into the presence of God". Instead, they are still stuck in the world.

Which forced me to consider the matter of ghosts. Mortal souls don't stick around (in my fantasy world, Arveniem), so they wouldn't be ghosts. But if the body of an immortal were slain, what then? The soul becomes disembodied. But I didn't like the idea of lots of disembodied spirits blowing around, so I decided they would become "refleshed". The word “reincarnation” does actually mean the same thing, but it comes with the whole baggage of “being reborn as a baby”, and that was some place I did not want to go. For me, I believe that each new life is unique, which leaves me ambivalent about the reality of the general perception of reincarnation. So rather than drag that ambivalence into the fiction, I looked for a different solution.

My solution was that if my “elves” - I ended up calling them the Fynlaren - were somehow “killed”, that is, had their body rendered non-functional, separating the spirit from the body, the “dead” body would disintegrate (dematerialize) within three days. And in the meantime, the spirit would once again take on a material form. But this time, the form would reflect the reality of the spirit. So, if an adult “died”, the refleshed form would be adult. A consequence was that if the Fynlar’s spirit/soul had somehow become warped, the new body would reflect that. But that was a secondary consideration.

With that decided, I could then say that a Mortal’s spirit when his or her body was killed would go right out of the World, and into the presence of God, totally separated from those inside the world.

This very basic but crucial difference in their fates gave me grounds for much potential tension between the mortals and immortals. And yet, I don't start the story with it blatantly evident. But it underlies a lot of what happens in my story.

Because so much fantasy I’ve encountered in recent years has “immortals” thrown into the story, but the authors don’t really seem to have considered what that means. In one book (by a friend, actually), her elves don’t seem to be immortal, but they are supposedly very long lived. Yet, it does not seem to play out that way – her heroine is taken into an “elven” family, and they all seem to be aged the way an ordinary human family would be, and they behave that way.

Even if the children of an immortal race go through the stages of infancy, childhood and adolescence at the same rate as a mortal race, once they reach adulthood, aren’t things going to be drastically different for them? For one thing, since they may have an indefinite expanse of time, matrimony is not something they would rush into. After all, what’s the hurry? As long as he or she is not marrying a mortal, of course.

Which is one of the main issues in my novel, The Ring of Adonel – one of the Fynlaren has married a Mortal woman, and they have a son, who has just reached adulthood. What happens next? Because Gwyric, the Fynlar, has been very much in love; he hasn’t considered what will happen as his wife ages or dies, he hasn’t considered the nature of his son.

That too was something I had to evaluate. What does happen to the children of a Mortal and Immortal? I made an arbitrary decision that any such child would be Mortal; that person would possibly have a much longer life-span than an ordinary Mortal, but that was all.

Anyway, the point of all this explanation is that having spent so much time working out the consequences for my own writing, I tend to get impatient when I read books where it is obvious that no thought has been expended on the issue of the differences between Mortal and Immortal.

I’m left wondering why that is so. If an author makes the statement that his or her “elves” are immortal, and yet does nothing to really make them different, what was the point? What do they get out of it? What does the reader get?

Ah! The silly holiday memes return!

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:45:53 GMT

Yeah, so I had to see what it would generate this year.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, scribblerworks sent to me...

Twelve quest4success drumming

Eleven milwaukeesfs piping

Ten dannydonovans a-leaping

Nine inklings driving

Eight movies a-swimming

Seven forensics a-writing

Six mountains a-profiling

Five cha-a-a-arles williams

Four sherlock holmes

Three comic books

Two serial killers

...and a travel in a mythopoeic society.

I'm not sure how one profiles a mountain, but on the other hand, given my studies in mythic motifs, it does seem like something I would do. I think I've gotten "Charles Williams" for Five before as well. Heh.

On Panels at Loscon

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:32:22 GMT

Since last year, when I finally hauled myself down to Loscon for the first time, I've been planning to return. It was a lot of fun!

And this year, I'll also be on a couple of the panels!

The Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (also known as GLAWS) is over-seeing a track of panels about writing, and I'll be on a couple of them. The whole writing track has some really good panels, of course. But the two I'll be on will be on Saturday.

The first panel is about writing Hard Science Fiction when you are not a scientist. (Secret: a lot of it is in how you do research - which is something right up my alley.) The other panel is on World-Building. Another fun topic for me.

I'm also going to take copies of The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth with me -- for sale and signing. I'm planning on offering a bit of a discount on the price for attendees AT Loscon (though I haven't calculated how much of a discount yet).

Between these things, and seeing friends, I'm looking forward to a fun weekend (after spending Thanksgiving day with other friends).

Plus, GLAWS is having a party too. :D

The Business of Bookselling

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:26:28 GMT

Sales on my book, The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, have slowed down the last few months. (Well, let's be honest, they've been almost non-existant.) Now, a large part of that is that I have not done a lot of book promotion on it. I'd been waiting to get some detailed information on one matter before I started planning what to do next.

So, today I got that information and it's a little bit discouraging.

This spring, I learned that if you have published your title as print-on-demand, even if your title is listed with Baker & Taylor (the middleman vendor that most bookstores deal with), if the book is not listed as RETURNABLE, most bookstores won't order it to carry in the store. This last June, the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (also known as GLAWS) had a two day "book fair" at a Barnes & Noble store here in LA (their large one at the Grove). It was then that we learned this glitchy little fact -- the store wouldn't order copies of a book that was not returnable.

I had just joined GLAWS when this was being set up, so all the author spots were filled up. (The authors would get to make a short presentation, and then sign copies.) Plus, I already knew that although my book (published POD through Amazon's BookSurge) was indeed listed with Baker & Taylor, it was not returnable. In the process of setting up this event, the GLAWS organizers learned that the fee with B&T to be listed as returnable was several hundred dollars a year. Since I did not have that several hundred dollars, the matter seemed to stall me. After all, I had already had the experience of pitching my book to the Writers Store here in LA, having the staff really like it, and them express the intent of carrying it.... and then seeing on my sales/orders record on BookSurge that no order had ever been placed. (Not that I get to see who orders copies, I don't. But I do get to see the sales numbers, and how many of them are wholesale orders. I think two copies have sold at wholesale, meaning that someone ordered it through their bookstore.)

So I had a conversation with my BookSurge publishing consultant about this matter this morning, and get the frustrating news. They have totally abandoned the "Returnable option" with B&T. Of course, as a subsidiary of Amazon, BookSurge is going to tout the growing use of online services for book sales. He pointed out that 40% of book purchases (I think that was the percentage) are now done online, and not in brick-and-mortar stores.

That sounds powerful in a phone conversation, especially in the midst of more chatter about how pervasive the internet is becoming. Until you step back and look at the number. It's 40%. It's not even half of all sales yet.

Now, how do the heck to I get a nice solid writing reference book into people's hands? How often do people do general searches for books on writing, especially on mythic symbolism in writing? It's the sort of thing that, mostly, in the past I would see when scanning bookshelves in the store, and go "Ooo, that looks interesting!" I'd pick it up and thumb through it, and decide to get it there. When I'm looking online, I usually already know what I'm looking for.

*sigh*

Well, it's clear that BookSurge isn't going to reactivate the returnable option. So, my next option is to deal directly with stores and have them carry the book "On Consignment". Yeah, right. Fine, I can do that with stores where I'm moderately local to them, but what about stores elsewhere? How the heck am I going to do that? And how do I set that up? How do I even begin to make those arrangements? (Especially at a time when I am strapped for cash!)

It's a puzzlement, when I'm a novice at this ~~game~~ ... business.

In the meantime, I ordered some additional author copies, that should arrive with the next four weeks. I needed to order some because I will be attending Loscon on Thanksgiving weekend, taking part in some of the panels in the writers track of programming, and selling copies of my book at the GLAWS booth. And in January, I'll be speaking at the GLAWS monthly meeting about mythic underpinnings for all kinds of stories, and I want to have copies available there too. There's also the matter of a publisher in Spain who requested a review copy to see if it was something they would want to translate and offer in Spanish. (Now that I've ordered new copies, I can go ahead and send them one.)

And I need to retool my marketing strategy. *sigh* I don't really pimp the book's site as much as I could or should. Nor do I really drive traffic to the blog for the book (seriously, I need to update it more frequently). So, given the way the world is these days... I should set up a Facebook presence for the book ('cause I'm NOT going to use my personal page for that kind of pimping -- at least not to that degree). And give into the current trends and explore the world of Twitter.

The frustrating thing is that the book, so far, has received uniformly high praise. But I keep wondering if my readers who have expressed great appreciation for it ever even mention it to another person, at least to the degree that the second person buys it. Actually, I do know a couple of friends do recommend it to others. But it's a very slow process to get started. I knew this going in. I might dream of a blaze of glory lighting up the sky, saying "Buy this book!" But that sort of thing just doesn't happen on its own.

To say the least, it's been an eye-opening process in learning these little details about marketing a book. The glitches an author faces, especially when said author has going the print-on-demand route.

Writing Description

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:06:01 GMT

Recently, I was reading the first chapter of a friend's current work-in-progress, in order to give her notes on it.

So, let me say that first off, I did like her story. She is a good storyteller.

But something about the chapter nagged at me, because the descriptions felt flat. On the one hand, it was clear to me that she has a sure vision of her characters and setting. And the chapter was not lacking in the details. But on the other hand, something just wasn't working.

When I went back through the pages, I realized that it was because just about ALL the description was carried by a "adjective plus noun" structure. Almost all the key nouns were tagged with adjectives or adjectival conjunctions. The constant repetition of this formula flattened out the effect of the details.

Secondly, she didn't give any over-all descriptions to describe the general impact of the setting. So instead of giving us an initial impact of "a richly appointed office, gleaming with brass, glass and polished leather" (the effect I think she was going for), she gave the details of specific items as her character dealt with them. The sum of the details was not greater than the total, instead, it was considerably less.

After writing up the notes for my friend, I turned to working on some revisions to my own work, based off notes from a critique group. Their principal note was that I had included too many "new" words (this is my fantasy, The Ring of Adonel, we're talking about) without hinting at their meaning. I'd left too many of them to be guessed at in context - and mostly, their guesses were indeed correct. Even though their guesses were on the mark, I realized the intellectual anxiety they had in tracking the meanings would be a drag on their reading. So I had to address it.

As I worked on it, trying to weave in definitions of my "new words" without using the Hammer of Exposition, I was also paying attention to how I was building my descriptions. The critique group had praised this aspect of my writing. So I was trying to be objective and figure out what I was doing (right) that my friend was not.

One thing I noticed is that I like to try and establish a general sense of place first. The general atmosphere, and if a character is present, how that character is reacting to the setting. After that, every description serves to reinforce the over-all sense, often by contrast. The opening sequence of the novel is set in the quiet of pre-dawn, outside of residences. But to enhance the sense of quiet, many of the descriptions are of small sounds - the sorts of things one would not notice during daytime when many people are out and about. Things like the sound of soft-soled boots moving on stone (which is a really soft sound, as I learned back when I frequently wore moccasins).

I also tried to vary from the "adjective plus noun" descriptions. Oh, they are there. I don't think you can entirely get away from them in the English language. But some of them I also tried to turn into noun / verb constructions. Metaphors and similes were also tools I put to use. But it is all laid in on some bones of plain prose. Grass is just grass. Stones are just stones. It is the blend of bare words with loaded description that creates the mix.

Now, I would be the first to admit that I am capable of some deeply purple prose. I've certainly gotten better at toning down the overly-rich descriptions. After all, I don't want to put my readers into an insulin shock from too much description. But after going over my friend's draft, I've come to realize that bare bones with no meat isn't the only problem alternative to "too much cake": you could also have a "safe" amount of cake that had turned to dry crumbs and fallen apart.

The point of this lesson? Gee, this writing stuff is hard.
:D

Book Review

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:23:53 GMT

ANGEL FALL, by Coleman Luck (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2009)

Before I actually get into reviewing this book, I should be up-front about the fact that I know the author. Not only that, I heard or read part of the manuscript while Coleman Luck was still working on it. I have, in fact, been waiting for the completed book for some time.

With that out of the way, let’s get on to the story at hand. It’s one that has had its hooks in me during all that wait, and I think it will snag many other readers.

The story set-up blows three children, the Lancaster siblings of Amanda, Alex and Tori, out of our world and into another. There are plenty of books that start with similar “world crossings” -- the Narnia books being the first that leap to mind. But Coleman Luck is not C.S. Lewis, in that he does not present the story in a cozy “I’m telling a bedtime story” mode. His prose is vivid and evocative, and uncompromising. The world these children enter is a strange and seemingly forbidding place. And the sisters arrive in the strange world separated from their brother.

Before they had left their hometown, Alex had been given one world of advice: “When you don’t know where to go … follow.” Like any angry and bitter teen, Alex forgets the advice when it’s important and follows it when he shouldn’t. Meanwhile, his sisters are charged with conveying an amazingly calm baby to the Mountain. The Mountain, so tall and massive that its peak is lost to sight, sits in the background of the whole story, waiting. But even before the girls can set out on their quest, young Tori is snatched away by a sinister force, leaving Amanda alone to deal with the burden of the quest.

This strange world lies under a horrific infection, where beauty has been ravaged, and things are not what they seem. The quest and adventures the children face peel away the protective scabs each of them have over festering wounds. The revelations of the wounds are handled carefully, but the author does not pull any punches about them. In particular, Amanda’s hidden wound is shocking. And yet, each rings painfully true.

At the heart of this story is a consideration of the nature of Evil. You won’t find an intellectual debate rationalizing a relativistic approach. Instead, actions play out the natures of Good and Evil. In the world of Angel Fall, even small petty evils can have powerful effect on one’s circumstances.

The book is superbly written, in prose that is polished to gem-like brightness. Some passages feel like you are inside a song. Some bits of description are wonderfully vivid, to the degree I was going “Oo! I want to draw that!” -- a reaction I have not had to a book in a long time.

The one caveat I have about this book is that I do not think it will be every reader’s cup of tea. It is not a soft, comfortable fantasy. It is intense. I found it deeply moving at points, but there is no denying that it is also unsettling and disturbing as well. The three children all go through harrowing experiences, and that may bother some readers. The author presents these matters with a sure hand, but not every reader will enjoy the challenge.

That said, I loved it. It was worth the wait I had to endure, while the author finally got it finished. If you are ready to face the challenge, read this book.

I'm Entitled to Have You Read My Manuscript!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:22:50 GMT

A screenwriting columnist for the Village Voice has written a rant about a graceless wannabe writer who consumed a chunk of time for the columnist.

Remember, it is the Village Voice so the language is not filtered. But I'm posting THIS LINK because there are some discussions going on about it in two widely divergent communities I belong to.

One of those communities is a comic book message board. A couple of posters registered only the ranting in the column, and so immediately labeled the columnist a jerk. There was a lot of "I'll bet when he was coming up through the ranks, he asked some pro he admired to read his stuff!" Underneath that was the implication that the columnist was an insenstive brute who climbed the ladder of success by troding on the backs of those "ahead" of him. They felt he was being insenstive to the wannabe.

Which only makes me wonder if they actually read the column all the way through.

The other community where it is getting some discussion is amongst some of my fellow Christians in the entertainment business -- primarily among the writers. One friend raised the question as to whether, as Christians, we could out of hand reject approaches from aspiring writers. He observed that his own father (an excellent writer, and a former Executive Producer / Writer for a successful television series) had approached and gotten useful feedback from Pauline Kael when he was starting out. And my friend does have a point -- but to a certain degree. But he too was overlooking the fact that the columnist actually did say yes to the wannabe, and read the "two page synopsis".

There is very little outcry regarding the wannabe who approached the professional, on the very barest basis of acquaintenceship, asked for a critique on the synopsis, so he could submit it to an upcoming contest. The columnist does not give any indication of the time frame for the deadline on the contest, but given his reaction to the actual text he had to read, perhaps that became a matter of no importance.

Now, even though I haven't had a screenplay produced, and my only comic scripts in print were short-stories done for an independent anthology, I have managed to complete a rather large book on writing (I'm sure I have mentioned it: The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth -- ;-) ). Even though I offer my services for paid consulting, I also frequently give assistence to aspiring writers I happen to know. I like encouraging people to write and express themselves. So, I've had people approach me with the "Read my manuscript" inquiry. So far, I've been fortunate in that they are usually people I have real relationships with. They don't necessarily have to be close relationships, but I and the inquirer have usually interacted somewhere. So I have dealt with the matter on a much smaller scale (and a more amicable one) than the columnist. And I have watched other friends deal with this situation as well.

To me, the true crux of the matter is NOT the columnist's attitude about this experience: it is the wannabe's.

I may do a little bit of injustice to the wannabe in what follows, but I'm extrapolating from "witness testimony" and mixing it with attitudes I have seen in my own life.

1: The Wannabe has spent a year (a year, isn that impressive?!?) working on his script, and he's sure it's great stuff.
2: All he's asking the Pro to read is a mere two page synopsis of the impressive, wonderful script. That's not much, is it?
3: Oh, by the way, he needs the synopsis to be killer because there's this contest coming up, and he needs to get this submitted soon.
4: (Private thought) It'll be really cool to go into the contest and be able to say "Estabilshed Pro" gave him notes and was a really big help. The Pro really liked it!
5: His girlfriend knows this guy, and they've chatted -- well, it was at some party a year ago, but they have talked.
6: He'll ask the Pro at the party tonight, with the girlfriend at hand, to remind the Pro of their connection. AND he'll have the two pages with him, just in case the Pro says "Yes" (how could he not?).

On the other side of the equation, there is the Pro's experience.

1: He's a professional writer, and has his own projects in hand to work on.
2: Plus he reads scripts as WORK, and has a pile at home, waiting for his notes. That he gets paid for critiquing.
3: He also has a pile of manuscripts from friends (who are willing to wait for his feedback when he can get to their works) to read and critique. But they are from friends, whom he cares about and who care about and respect him.
4: He does know the girlfriend, enough to be sociably polite to her and whoever is with her.
5: He's cornered at a party by Wannabe, assured that it is just two pages for a killer script, there's this deadline coming (how long can two pages take), and the girlfriend is there, so he wants to be nice.

So, he says "yes". And what does he get? A piece of writing that is not any good at all, not as a synopsis or as a mere piece of writing. Disaster. What was Wannabe thinking? This is not ready to be submitted anywhere, let alone a contest. It shouldn't even have been given to the Pro yet. If the Pro was being paid for this critique, he could be blunt and be done with it. But this was a social agreement, so he needs to be more judicious and sensitive. So the Pro goes through three versions of notes, to strike the right tone of genuine, useful critique and consideration of Wannabe's feelings. It is not easy to soft-pedal bad news, but the Pro tries it.

And what does the Pro get for this work (for critiquing and then writing the notes up in a civil fashion is WORK)? He gets no thanks from Wannabe, and then later learns out second-hand that Wannabe is trashing him as a jerk.

Is it really as simple as saying that too many people think that writing does not take work? That every word they choose is perfect and ideally placed in sequence? That they have nothing to learn? That just because their friend protect their sensibilities, they are entitled to be treated with kid gloves by everyone who reads their verbage?

Where exactly does this sense of entitlement come from?

Recently, in comics circles, there was an incident at a convention where a fan noticed that a particular artist (who is notorious for his strangely proportioned figures) was at a table booth, doing commissions and signing autographs. This fan, who felt the artist had "ruined" a favorite title several years in the past, decided to prank the artist. He was going to strike a blow for discerning fans everywhere and really "get" the guy. He bought a "how to draw figures" book from a vendor, and went back to the booth - and left the book, wrapped in a bag, on the table and zipped away before the artist opened the bag. A friend of the fan lurked in the crowd and did a cell phone video capture of the event. The fan crowed about how he had really showed the artist what's what. The problem is, that the video showed that the artist was absorbed in finishing the commission he was working on, didn't notice the book package initially, and when the bag was opened (by an artist at a neighboring table who had watched the encounter) the artist shrugged it off. He's gotten criticism for years, but he continues to work as a pro -- plus he shows up at cons, signing autographs for his fans, doing commissions for those who want them.

In the discussions that followed this event, there were some that felt the fan had been entitled to be this much of a jerk. Because the artist was so awful. After all, the fans had bought the books, hadn't they? Didn't that give them the right to be as nasty as they pleased to someone who so obviously deserved to be treated with utter disrespect?

To me, this fan's attitude is the twin of the Wannabe writer's. For some reason, they felt entitled to treat the professionals as they wished.

"I bought your book, didn't I?" "I paid good money to see your movie, so you OWE me!" "You got my money for that album of yours!"

What I see in this pernicious attitude is that such people seem to think that buying the book, or the album, or paying to see the movie, somehow entitles them to OWN the professional: whether for abuse, or for use, it doesn't seem to matter. They. Are. Entitled. And the professional is not. The professional is not entitled to respect, consideration, privacy, whatever. By being professional, everything about their life is now public, including their time-use.

It's surprising that we don't hear of professionals who are approached this way responding by saying "My going rate is $50 an hour, for reading or critiquing. I'm booked solid right now, but I can give you a two-hour block four weeks from next Thursday." "But... but... we're at a party right now!" "I'm not working right now." "It won't take you two hours to read this." "I only work in two hour incriments, because usually it takes a lot longer than the submitter thinks it does." "But... but...." "That's the reality, my friend." "But I don't have $100. Not for just some quick notes on two pages." "Then why did you ask me to do some work for you?" "It's not WORK! It's just READING some pages!" "It's work to me."

But creative types always try to be polite. And nice. That's the weakness, and why this subtle abuse by the Self-Entitled continues.

The Labor of Website Updates

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:34:03 GMT

I think I've mentioned it before: I have this website. Even though my ambition for it has always been to regularly add new material to it, the reality is that I don't do it very often. A big reason for that is that it does take a chunk of time to build a webpage. I'm not the best at it, and half the time I'm not entirely sure I know what I'm doing when it comes to coding.

So, I updated my front page, adding a fairly current photo of myself. Alas... that coding stuff got away from me, so some of the text runs off to the right side. I'm going to have to do something about that. Eventually.

I added a new paper to the site: "For Love of Sophia." It was written for and presented at Mythcon 34, which was held in Nashville. The theme of the conference that year was the Wise Woman in literature, and it gave me an opportunity to take some of the things I had worked on in The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, and apply them to literary studies. I admit, I got a kick out of that.

As a side note on that, I have to admit to a certain genuine enjoyment of doing literary scholarship just for the fun of it. It lets me step beyond my mere passive reception and enjoyment of a work of fiction and elaborate on aspects of the work that have resonated for me. I have a strong analytic turn of mind (happily, in my case, balanced by a strong synthetic side as well -- putting things back together in new configurations), and it is a pleasure to give it free rein in ways that do not require negative criticism. It's also refected in my interest in process (how a work came about, was constructed, or was influenced), which travels with my love of the product (the work itself, be it a book or a piece of artwork or music).

Anyway, I've also added a couple of new reviews, long overdue: a short review of James A. Owen's Imaginarium Geographica, and Jincy Willett's The Writing Class. The links directly to the reviews are in this update notice.

(And, oh great! Another coding error -- the Amazon link for Indigo King got added in the wrong place -- I'm going to have to fix that! Yuck. Tomorrow, probably.)

Every so often, I reconsider my policy of the permanent reviews on the website. I mean, I have a couple of blogs that I can do reviews on, this one and the one on my MySpace (which I use mostly for comics reviews -- it too needs some updating). But for some reason, I feel that blog posts are more ephemeral, I'm not sure why. They aren't really, the way there is redundency all over the internet. Perhaps it is that the review is hosted on someone else's "property", whereas when it is on my own website, it's planted in my own yard. But there's also this feeling I have that if I take the time to add a review to the website, it's a permanent statement on my part -- it's not just a passing reaction to the immediate experience. If I add it to the website, "I REALLY mean it!"

Anyway... that's been the activity I was engaged in this morning. Obviously, I'm going to have to do some more tweaking tonight or tomorrow to correct those little glitches on the new additions.

In the meantime -- HEY! plan ahead for Christmas! Check out my original Christmas card designs and BUY SOME -- please forgive the crappy black and white scans of the artwork, by the way. The cards are actually in color, and look much much better. (Yeah, I am going to have to get on the stick and master my new scanner. *sigh* work work work).

Inspiration from the Search Strings

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:46:17 GMT

I've mentioned in a couple of previous entries how I sometimes check the search strings that bring people to my website. It's a rather interesting activity, that I don't do often enough. I stopped checking my website stats frequently, because at present, once I get past what seems to be terrific numbers, I realize that the high number of hits are the spam bots and search engine spiders. I started realizing this, when I noticed that the pages that got the highest number of hits (hundreds of them), were the registration pages for my message board and the Word Press blogs connected with my sites. *sigh*

Once I ignore all the hits for the message board and blogs, I average about 48 visitors a month. Which all things considered isn't really bad, considering I don't really push for traffic much. Once I get myself back into gear and update it (it has needed an update for some time), and keep updating it with new material, I might do that. In the meantime, like I said, it's fun to see how "strangers" got there.

A lot of these strings deal with the hero's quest, or the nature of the hero. Some of them deal with heroines -- interesting that there is still the consideration of the female figure as the non-active, or somehow distinct in nature from the hero.I have, of course, commented on that point before.

There are some good springboards in the search strings, that I will flesh out either here or on the Scribbler's Guide blog. But the one that caught my attention for today was the question of "What makes one a hero or heroine in our culture?"

(I do get the impression that some of the search strings come from homework assignments, and the students are looking for things that can give them a clue on which way to jump. But they're still interesting.)

What does make one a hero in our culture these days? There is the obvious aspect of delivering groups of people to safety in dangerous circumstances -- like the pilot who landed his commercial airplane in the Hudson River without loss of life to any of the passengers. So, I guess we could say that the ability to cope with sudden disaster is one quality that makes for a hero in our culture. What else? A concern for others over one's own self-preservation. Now, memories of the First Responders who rushed into the World Trade Center and did everything they could to get as many people out of the towers as they possibly could, that was definitely putting others before one's own survival. How about quick wits and quick reactions? (I can think of occasions where, though they might be ideal qualities, they aren't necessary.)

When it comes down to it, I don't think the qualities that make for a hero have changed all that much down the ages. It's more to the point that I don't think we see quite as many occasions for heroism these days - at least not in the sense that an "unknown" jumps into the breach. We have "profressionally trained heroes" in our police officers and firemen. (Which is not to say that there are not some bad apples in the ranks.) Have we come to rely on them so much, that we no longer think that a true hero can be anyone?

There are stories of social disengagement often enough these days, of people who stand by when something dire is happening, who just watch but do not engage. Does our Observer Society lead us to consider "heroes" to be "someone other than me"? Have we really reached a point where we think heroism calls for special qualities that only some people have?

Points for mulling over -- what do you think?

Putting on a new face

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:32:50 GMT

Well.... putting on a new face on my LiveJournal page that is.

Every so often, I get hit with a desire for a little bit of change. Previously, I had customized a plain layout, continuing the red and white I use on my website. But, partly because I wanted to shift to a tag cloud and the previous page theme didn't allow it, and partly just to have a new visual, I looked through some of the themes.

When you're starting from a name of "scribblerworks", finding one with a pen in action is hard to resist. My only complaint? The sepia color. I'm not sure if I'd want to continue with the red tones I've been using, or something else, but the sepia seems a bit bland to me. On the other hand, I am someone who likes vivid and saturated color. Even so... I'm going to give this a try for a while.

I've been meaning to post something about writing and world-building, but I'll do that later. Maybe even later today.

Mythic Motifs at Work - #5

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:22:39 GMT

This time out, I'm tackling the cable show Burn Notice. I discuss how the show handle its Constant Jeopardy Syndrome construction (it does it well!).

I'd actually meant to write about some other mythic motifs in regard to this show (Michael as Savior and as Shapechanger), but with the summer episodes' cliffhanger, I was struck with admiration on how the show continually lets Michael make progress toward his goal, and yet also changes the nature of the goal both as a professional object and a personal one.

So, yes, I am once again sending you to the Scribbler's Guide blog! Enjoy, and comment where you will (I will find you! ;-) )

Enthusiasm for Storytelling

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:02:18 GMT

I occasionally coach other writers, especially those taking beginning steps. One of my rules of thumb is that if the person has a passion for story, they can eventually learn the craft -- if they are willing to do the work, and can listen to criticism. And when I'm working with such writers, I don't pull punches: if something isn't working, I'll say it isn't working. But I do try to keep it on track with what the writer wanted out of the piece, where they wanted to take me as a Reader.

When I start talking with someone who wants to get into writing, whether it is screenwriting or any other sort, I usually recommend that they go read Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! book. Blake's book is a great starting point for developing a story. Once you get going, you may branch out, but if you use his starting points, you are not likely to go drastically astray.

The book first appeared in May of 2005, and I got it that July. And was hooked. It wasn't that Blake had astonishing new revelations about writing. It was that he could make the points so succinctly and engagingly. Every sentence bounced with enthusiasm for storytelling. Instead of lecturing, his prose conveyed a joy in writing that was infectious. It made you excited about your own storytelling, mostly because it affirmed the mere act of starting to tell a story.

When I found out that Blake was going to do a book signing that September at the Writers Store in Los Angeles, I had to go. I took along my already edge-worn copy to have him sign it. In the course of the conversation, we really hit it off. I was to learn that he had the gift of easy sociability. But he also always delivered on the sense of friendship he conveyed. He was always accessible by email, and he was prompt in responding to emails. Later that year, I took one of the first (if not THE first) of his "Beat Sheet Workshops" -- two days with about eight other people working out story kinks. It was an experience worth having.

And after that, as I worked to get The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth off the ground, he was always very supportive. He was ready with advice, and encouragement. He graciously wrote a blurb for me to use on the back cover. He even recently gave me some advice on how to further market the book, bringing it to a broader audience - advice I mean to follow, once I get plans laid out.

But notice the past tense. I found out this afternoon, that Blake died this morning.

It is hard to accept that I will not again see him bounce into a room (he really did seem to bounce), his face bright with enthusiasm and expectation. I will not see him engage with a shy, insecure writer and draw him or her out about their story, about what really made them passionate about their story. For he had that gift, too.

Writing should be fun for the writer - this was one thing he managed to convey. Oh, not the grind work of getting something completed: he didn't pretend that it was not work, nor hard. He didn't pretend that the editing process could be painless: he knew that editing down a story often meant "killing one's children". But over all and under all, he knew that a writer should take joy in the act of writing, the process of creation, that the writer has to love his story.

The story of Blake's life these last few years has been one of joyful encouragement, of teaching those who were burning to learn how to better craft their stories. I'm sure in his private life he must have faced down times. But he never let it undermine what he had discovered to be his calling for this point in his life: nurturing new writers, guiding them to find the heart of their own stories. He blazed through his story brightly, and now his light has gone out.

But he lit many, many storyteller candles in his passage, and those lights will continue shining.

Mythic Motifs at Work - #4

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:57:14 GMT

So, at the end of Comic Con on Sunday, I finally caught up with one of the editors I like to chat with each year, Matt Idelson. I enjoy talking with him, as just another person, of course, but I also chat him up because... well, he's an editor I'd like to get a writing gig from. As one of the editors for DC Comics, he currently oversees Superman and Wonder Woman. The last few years, he and I have chatted about a second book for the Wonder Woman "group" (which is only one title right now), focused on Wonder Woman's sister, Donna Troy. He likes the idea of having it, and he knows how much I want to write it, but when it comes to company properties, they often have to wait on "big event stories" and sundry other things. And so the Donna Troy idea sits in waiting.

But Matt's a good guy, and he knows I've got more going on than just trying to get a writing gig out of him. Last year, I'd given him a copy of The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, and he asked how things were going with that. I had to admit that things are currently a little bit stalled -- there are marketing matters I need to sort out, so that it can be carried in stores, and I need to retool my advertising approaches. But, I added, I had started a blog, to do little bits on popular entertainment, drawing from aspects of the book. He thought this was a good idea, and asked if I had done (or was going to do) anything on comics. I said no, not yet. He observed that he'd have thought it would be right up my alley.

At the time, what crossed my mind was "More on comics? I don't know. I mean, I've covered Batman and Superman in the book." But on my drive back from San Diego, I thought about his question. "Why not do something on Wonder Woman?" I thought. My friend, Gail Simone, is currently the writer for the title, and I love what she is doing. But even so, I keep running across people who say that they don't "get" Wonder Woman. They don't know how to plug into her character. So it occured to me to write up something about the difficulties in the character -- why she isn't easy to write or to connect with.

So, here it is, the latest in my "Mythic Motifs at Work" -- THE PROBLEM WITH WONDER WOMAN.

Hope you enjoy it.

Finally, my own Mythcon report!

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:50:30 GMT

Of course, one of the things that happen when you are the person running the conference is that you hardly remember any of the details. And you get to very few of the program items, because you are always somewhere else, either dealing with a problem, or checking to make sure all is well with various people.

But even so... my Mythcon report, such as it is, including some pictures of the Food Art. I didn't photograph everything that was created, alas. And there was quite a lot of it this year. Everyone seemed singularly inspired. It was fun to hear so many people having so much fun! Quite a few roars of laughter were heard.

http://scribblerworks.us/blog/?p=28

I round out my report with pictures of my lovely little boat, which the committee gave me. They made me cry -- intense emotion, on top of the end of stress, fatigue, and deep pleasure in seeing how much eveyone had enjoyed themselves. My committee did a LOT of work, and I certainly could not have done it without them (especially the heroic Gavin Claypool, who did so much more than his duties as Registrar that it isn't even funny - he was extremely valuable to me).

The End of the Line

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:34:17 GMT

I'm still in San Diego, with two days of Comic Con to survive. My feet want to fall off, and my knees stiffen up very easily. I briefly sat out in the sun this afternoon before I was going to leave, and the hot sun on my black slacks soothed the knees for a little bit. Enough to get me a bit further, but man, it's an endurance test. One weekend spent standing and walking a lot, followed by another five days of a more intensive version of the same (concrete convention floor under occasional carpeting).

Wednesday was the Preview Night, which involved a lot of waiting in line for people. And it inspired a bit of silliness in me, in the form of a short story. Short enough to post here. For your amusement....

THE END OF THE LINE

Thousands and thousands of people converged upon the city of San Diego. The sun shone brightly, and heat from the solar rays accumulated in the sidewalks, seeping upward through sneakers, flip-flops, sandals, boots, mocassins and assorted other foot gear. The population of a city descended from the sky by airplane, rolled through the streets by automobile or bus or train. All this human traffic gathered for the annual Comic Con International. The arrivals were annoyed by the scarcity of parking spots. That the city's baseball team was playing an important game at the ballpark across the street from the Convention Center meant nothing to these visitors. The Exhibit Hall held the mystical Kaabah for the pilgrims, a kaabah that was different for each.

Lines upon lines formed of weary but eager pedestrians. Lines for Hall H (the Hollywood Hall). Lines for registration pick-up. Lines for the television shows preview. But most important of all, lines to enter the Exhibit Hall. This, the fabled Preview Night meant that the tens of thousands who possessed four-day passes would ahve access to the Exhibit Hall prior to the official opening of Comic Con. It promised first access to all the storied treasures that were to be offered.

From one end to the other, the might Convention Center stretched a full quarter mile. And every attendee faced the prospect of multiple transits end to end during the Con. They faced it without fear or trepidation, accepting it as a necessity for Comic Con.

The wait was long, for although registration, where attendees could pick up their pass badges, opened at three (actually earlier, as mercy was taken on the patient flocks of fans), the Hall was not due to open until six. The long line was folded back on itself in the broad air-conditioned corridors of the upper level of the Center.

And then the magic happened! Movement! The line moved forward. The polite red-shirted Elite security shepherded the eager fans into neat lines. The line snaked forward, away and back in a bend and then around a corner.

Dutifully, the patient attendees followed instructions and marched down the bayside corridor to some access point in the region of Hall G.

But one lone attendee, who hobbled slowly forward on sore feet, with stiff knees, paused as she watched the eager fans disappear in the distance. Then she heard the walkee-talkee of an orange-shirted convention staff member crackle. The voice that came through was oddly accented, unlike any foreign influence she had ever heard. "Loading in of groceries completed. Excellent supplies this year. Lipid rich."

She stopped in her tracks. What has she overheard? A sensation of horror crept over her. After all, the line had been disappearing in a direction removed from the usual access to the Exhibit hall. But ... surely those thousands of attendees were not the groceries mentioned!

She walked stiffly over to the windows that stared out at the bay. The glare of the westering sun distorted everything. But, just when she had decided she was imagining things, the windows rattled from a massive displacement of air. She thought she saw a shadowed saucer shape, but then it was gone.

However, when she did finally get down to the Exhibit Hall, it was gloriously spare in population. The exhibitors smiled cheerfully, since the humidity had not risen noticably. She walked the aisles without bumping others, and scored a number of the special exclusives, since the numbers clustered round the booths were strangely low.

Happy and satiated at the end of the evening, she passed two more staffers and heard one comment to the other, "If it keeps the fire marshal away, it is worth it to deal with those alien carnivores."

******

Just to be clear... this IS a work of fiction. :D

The Heart of Mythcon

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:37:24 GMT

There is much that I could say, but for right now, I am facing the last few hours of Mythcon 40. It has been a glorious weekend and one that I shall treasure for a long, long time in memory. There has been much laughter, much conversation, much joy. And that pleases me after all my work.

But the following is, for me, the heart and soul of Mythcon. It's a bit I wrote up to introduce the Mythopoeic Awards Chairman, but it describes, for me, what makes Mythcon so special and unique.

*******

The playfulness and joy that comes from this community frequently gives Mythcon an air of frivolity. But it is a playfulness that springs from our serious attention to a group of writers who took their scholarship seriously. The Inklings were a group who also considered joy an important part of their response to the world. A joy in their work has been communicated to us, and it finds its expression in the best scholarship on these authors anywhere. Past Mythcons have been graced as the testing ground for many important works (for instance, Verlyn Flieger's work on Tolkien). It is our joy in serious study that sustains us each year at Mythcon, it is our serious appreciation of our enjoyment in these works that inspires us to return again and again to hear what new insight others have gained.

And in that vein we bestow awards on works of scholarship and fiction that do honor to the traditions of the Inklings. ....

*******

Mythcon 40 is almost over. My job is nearly done. But someone else gets to pick up for next year. And I get to look forward to that.

"I love it when a plan comes together!"

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:54:26 GMT

Mind you, I never watched The A-Team. It never quite hit the right note for me back in the day. But, the line is a useful one.

Anyway, I am pausing in my Mythcon preparations to take a little break. There are still chores to be done -- preparing the registration packets, mostly. And a handful of personal chores, like laundry. But I'm beginning to believe that I will actually have things all in order by Wednesday evening. I dream of getting up Thursday morning, leisurely getting myself pulled together and then, after a morning swim, setting out for the site. And watching the fun unroll.

Of course, there is one thing I haven't prepared yet, and that's my comments for the Opening Ceremonies. Oh, I don't plan on droning on long, but I do want to speak about how it all came together.

This has been nearly two years in planning. The early days of the planning were mostly just thinking of the conjunction of Guests of Honor. Then there was the seeking out of committee members, people I knew I could work with and who were "just right" for the tasks at hand. I feel fortunate in the choices I made. Then came the seeking out of a good location. There were various places in Southern California that have hosted Mythcons in the past. But none of them were what I considered idea -- that required a location that people knew well enough to consider driving to, especially if they only meant to come for one day of the four day conference. UCLA always was on the top of my list for that. When I investigated, the facilities UCLA offered for conferences seemed ideal for Mythcon. So, that's where we settled.

Of course, with the economy being what it is, there was every expectation that attendence would be lower. But as our deadlines drew near last month, people started popping up. But beyond that agreeable development, there is the pleasure and excited expectation that various people have been displaying. The right guests, a fascinating collection of presentations, upbeat energy... it is all what I hoped for, but almost didn't dare to expect.

This has been a labor of love, that's for sure. I feel as if I am getting the opportunity to do a mass of entertaining that I have not been able to do for years (parking in my neighborhood is such that it would be a punishment to ask a group of friends over at once). I am being energized by the expectation of being able to watch people connect, have fun, be absorbed in interesting conversations. And I am utterly grateful for the folks who have follwed in my train, jumped at my call, and delivered on their tasks.

Lisa Harrigan, Sherwood Smith, Gavin Claypool, Lisa (and her husband Robert) Cowan, Nancy Martsch, Bonnie and Tim Callahan -- my faithful committee; Lynn Maudlin, Mythopoeic Society Secretary for Conferences and superb nudge and nag (and good friend!); Randy Hoyt, Society Webmaster, who has been very accommodating about posting everything -- it has been a BIG assist!; UCLA's Monica Hite, the university's conference coordinator -- yes, it's her job, but she has handled my information requests and occasional glitches well; UCLA's Charli Wong, our catering coordinator; Rusty Poehner, who found us a way to handle the insurance -- a good thing she deals with non-profit 501.c3s frequently. Without each and every one of these folks, I would not be as mentally at ease about the conference as I am.

Of course, "at ease" is definitely relative. I am a control freak, after all. :D

What are you covering?

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:29:59 GMT

A friend posted a link to a company blog about "Cover letters from hell". There are some amazingly funny missives presented on it. You can check it out at http://www.killianadvertising.com/coverletters.html.

The bit that really caught my attention was this last section:

We're trying to collect enough samples to bring this to book length. (We're getting closer, having been featured on some national media recently. Traffic to this page has gone through the roof.) Everyone, it seems, has a juicy example or two in the files.

Especially college instructors. True story – many college teachers have told us variations of this story: they red-pencil and downgrade students for glaring errors in grammar, usage, spelling. Students go to the Dean to complain. Dean reprimands the teacher for being hard on tuition-paying future donors. Teacher (not tenured) shuts up, fumes, then collects samples to send to us.

Maybe students send incoherent gibberish to potential employers because nobody ever told them not to. That's a scary thought.

I really hate the idea of the tyrant of the "they may some day be donors" mentality. If those students are let loose with incompetent communication skills, why would the Dean even imagine they will be in a position to donate anything?

It's one reason that it probably a good think I am not engaged in institutional instruction. I would be inclined to start a semester with the following declaration: "For every writing assignment, I will give you a margin of ten grammatical or spelling errors. Once you reach the ten-mark, your paper is automatically rendered unacceptible, and I will stop reading. The paper will be returned to you and you will have exactly one week to correct your paper. If you do not do so, you will be given a failing grade on the assignment automatically. This is non-negotiable."

Now, I will be the first to admit that proofreading one's own work is difficult. Last night I was reading through my old X-Files spec script, and found a number of typos that made me cringe. My only excuse is that it was most definitely not the version I had sent out back in the day; it was re-typed specifically to post online, and I only gave it a cursory proof-read. Not setting a good example, it's true.

But the idea (that students whining about the consequences of their own failure to learn the basics is enough to allow them to escape those consequences) offends my sensibilities. There is this assumption that their mere intention of communication is sufficient to make the communication a success. And that is an incredible and erroneous assumption. They feel quite free to indicate that someone else's failure to communicate clearly is unacceptible to them, but when you inform them that they have failed to communication, the fault is yours (and they usually feel free to denegrate your education, even when it was far better than their own).

Anyway, reading the snippets of cover letters was chastening. Next month, I will be getting back into the swing of writing such myself, searching for employment. There seems to be a fine line between "I'm the one you want and here's why" and "I'm absolutely wonderful and you're an idiot if you don't see it." I certainly want to be in the first camp and not the second.

I try not to make assumptions about whether I've been clear or not. Sure, sometimes I like indulging in word play, or teasing (which occassionally calls for obscurity).

But the only time I complained to a professor about his marking of a paper of mine, it was because I did not understand what he found objectional. I had been reading a lot of essays by British writers, and liked the mind-set and phrasiology. So I used it myself. Which, for some reason, he found worthy of demarkation. And then there was the example that he marked down, and I could not understand why. I had said (forgetting the exact examples cited), "Item X is bound with Y". According to Professor X (yes, this was the infamous Shakespeare professor mentioned before), this was just plain wrong. According to him, it had to be "bound up with". I was flabberghasted. Why the heck was I required to use an unnecessary preposition if I did not want to?

But that is obviously not what is going on with the students mentioned in the Killian blog. I weep, for we have entered an Illiterate Age.

Mythic Motifs at Work - #3

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:17:33 GMT

I certainly had not meant to post another one of the motifs blog things this soon. I have intended to spread them out a bit. But these thoughts on Disney-Pixar's Up have been bubbling for a while, so I went ahead with it.

You can check it out HERE.

If you have not seen Up yet, you should get out and do so. One of the most charming films I've seen in a while. But even if you have not seen it, I don't think my comments will spoil it for you at all.

Mythic Motifs at Work - #2

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:48:12 GMT

After spending more time wrangling with the Mythcon program book's lay out (somehow it got plagued with some ghost headers that messed up some pages), I was finally able to post the next installment on the Scribbler's Guide blog.

This time, I take on Dr. Gregory House, misanthrope. He's "divine" did you know?

More of these short analyses coming -- and all of the ideas I'm drawing on can be found in The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth. Try it! You'll like it!

Late Night Ideas and Surprise Foreshadowing

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:06:41 GMT

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I got an idea for something coming up in my novel. I thought, "Oh, hey, that's an interesting idea. I'll write it down in the morning." Of course, you don't always remember in the morning things that occured to you late at night, especially just before sleeping. Happily, I remembered that point too. I went back into the living room, turned on the light, went to my desk and got out the notebook where I write down the odd out-of-sequence ideas that come to me about the current work.

I have to say that it is really, really tempting to explain the specifics of what this idea is, because the way it fits in with the story is very satisfying. But, because I think it will make a particular moment in the story even more emotionally powerful, I don't want to spoil the surprise.

But I do want to talk about it generally.

Part of the thing about this idea that came to me is that it pays off something set up in the early part of the novel. In an early chapter, I introduce something that (at least so far) has never been explained. Within the world of Arveniem, this Something has a very active role in some stories. It's just that in The Ring of Adonel, it doesn't. In RofA (as I call it sometimes), this Something doesn't even come near to do what it is designed to do.

And I have to admit that that has always puzzled me. "Why doesn't this come up in RofA?" I wondered vaguely, from time to time. On the one hand, there was the possibility of just deleting mention of the special nature of the Something, since it didn't seem like there was going to be a pay-off inside RofA. Except that the special nature serves as a trigger for something else (in this early incident) that really is important to the story (and the characters outside RofA that will descend from my hero). But it just plain seemed that why it was a matter of concern was not going to be explained in this novel.

For a long time, I just ended up shrugging it off. It was what it was, and if it never got paid off in The Ring of Adonel, that's just the way it was going to stay. It does have a HUGE pay-off in another story, and I was content with that.

So, when this idea came to me last night, i got excited! "Oooooo! If it gets that pay-off, it will also pay off this second incident over here too! That's going to be so cool! It's going to make this particular moment even more powerful!"

(It sucks to have to talk in generalities, because it's so cool! But I really want to keep it as a surprise.)

Anyway, the fact that it came together with another incident in the book reminded me of something Dorothy L. Sayers discusses in The Mind of the Maker. The point she makes is that in good writing, all the pieces hold together well, that they all work toward the satisfying end. The example she uses is from Gaudy Night, where two things she needed in the story for different reasons worked together for a more powerful impact. At one point, she needed to have Harriet finally relent toward Lord Peter, and allow him to give her a gift. Because she has been bristling with resentment of gratitude over the fact that he saved her life five years before, she has refused anything that looked like a gift from him. So, when she finally relents, she knows she has to choose something of meaning, something of value. It's not about the expense of the gift, it's about whether it is appropriate as a gift: something that will delight her, and something he would be delighted to give. She chooses a set of antique ivory chess pieces, and he is overjoyed to give them. Later, for plot reasons, Sayers needed to have the "villain" of the story destroy something of Harriet's, in order to show the escalating violence of the Poison Pen culprit that has been harrassing the College. The culprit destroys the chess pieces, so thoroughly that only one pawn remained unscathed. Sayers describes how after the book had been out, she was at a function talking with a reader, and the woman said to Sayers that as soon as the gift was bestowed, she KNEW the chess pieces were doomed. Sayers was much struck by this observation on the part of a reader of a coherence that she as the author was unaware. As noted, the gift was given because Sayers needed to mark a change in the Harriet/Lord Peter relationship. The gift was destroyed because she needed the separate plot incident of the culprit turning on Harriet.

So... this confluence of ideas for me is similar to Sayers' experience. I needed the Something to have the nature it does for reasons that are actually external to The Ring of Adonel. But there is also an important point about one of the characters that will be enhanced when the explanation of the Something finally does happen. There is a coherence of this creation that I had not anticipated. My instinct that the Something really does belong in this story was correct from the beginning -- I just didn't know the why of it.

I suspect that this is where many creators go astray in creating worlds. They get an idea for something in their world, and put it in. They know it fits, but they don't know why. So they try to come up with the why, forcing explanations on it. Then they've committed themselves to an explanation that later on may not hold up (either within their story or within their world).

It is very, very hard for human creators to accept the inexplicable. "I don't know why this is here, but it belongs here." Nobody really wants to admit that, because it sounds like you don't know what you are doing. Even though you KNOW the "rightness" of the presence of that inexplicable item. Outside readers (when the work is still in process) keep expecting your encyclopediac explanation of what this thing actually is, and why it should be present in this story.

But creativity doesn't work that way. Sometimes you get ideas that just feel right, that feel like they are part of the weaving of the story, the weaving of the world, even though you don't know why. The why may come a long time later than the initial idea. The creator just has to trust his or her sense of "rightness" in the face of the inexplicable.