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.

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 what does "Immortality" mean? )

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.

( Read more... )

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.

( Read more... )

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.

( Feel Entitled and Read More )

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.

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.

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

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.

( Read more... )

One of the things about creating a totally new fantasy world is that you don't want it to sound too much like "this world".  And I certainly didn't want to sound like I was copying Tolkien bit for bit.

Today, I was going along, working on some new text in The Ring of Adonel, moving the story forward, and I had a character say "I will go tell the lords."

And I stopped.

Because, the reality was that he was doing more than just talking to those the common folk would consider "lordly".  He was going to talk to the leaders of the three Fynlaren Houses.  One of which now is actually a woman.  And suddenly, I realized that I wanted a term that was not quite as laden with gender baggage as "lord".

So, I wanted a term that would refer to these specific characters as the principal figures of their "tribes".  And I didn't want it to be a really obvious borrowing from real world cultures.

After running through the thesaurus looking for possibilities, I decided to start mining Old Irish.  I'd studied it in graduate school, and have a grammar book, that glosses a lot of the vocabulary.  So I drew up a list of English words that had meanings that could be applied to the position under consideration: head, crown, leader, first, lord, one, master, rule, sight, voice, king.  As I grazed through the book, other possibilities of meaning suggested themselves: high, great, very great, highest, treasure, gift, I judge, holds fast, hero, forehead.  In the end, I went with one of the words for "high", ard, and a term for "prince", mal.  Combining them, I get ardmal (sing., with ardmalen for plural -- the "-en" ending for plurals has already been established).

Of course, after coming up with the term, I then had to go back through the manuscript as it stands and replace the terms.  Except that not every instance of "lord" is being replaced, because it is still used as a generic honorific.  And then, also, there's the decisions about when to capitalize it and when not to. 

I believe it's these little touches that are important to creating the sense of place, the sense of existence, of a fantasy world.  Especially for dealing with things that we don't have. 

It's also one of those things that I felt satisfied with. Probably a detail others won't be interested in, but there it is: today's achievement in my work.  :D

The thing about self-publishing, especially the print-on-demand route, is getting the word out about your book. And getting it available. 

Even if you mention it and link to the book's page a lot on the internet, it still is found mostly by those who are already looking for you or your subject matter.  You don't usually catch the attention of the casual passer-by.  So, there is a point in wanting to get at least a few copies into book stores.

Yeah, so how do you get a print-on-demand book into stores?  Well, you want to make sure that your book is available through Baker & Taylor, for instance.  You won't get as big a royalty on those sales, but you do spread your territory.

HOWEVER, it turns out, that being listed through Baker & Taylor isn't actually enough to really get your book in a store.  In the course of my ongoing education in the business of promoting a self-published book (in this case, The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth), I have learned that stores want the surity of the books being returnable to B&T.  And to have your book listed on THAT basis, there is an annual fee that runs something like $400 a year.  I assume that this fee is covered as one of the usual publication costs when a "regular" publishing house is putting out your book.

On top of that, if you are planning a signing at a store, you want to be sure that Baker & Taylor have at least 20 copies of your book already printed and in their warehouse.   Because of the time required to make POD books, it's better that actual physical copies are at hand with B&T when stores place their orders.

Oh, joy.

So here I sit, at a time when my personal finances are very tight.  I really want to get the book into certain book stores, but it has become obvious that those stores are not going to order copies unless the "returnable" option is in place.

What's that saying? It costs money to make money?  Not that I wrote this book to make mega-bucks.  I wrote it because I felt there was a need for it, and I knew the stuff for it.  I like to think I did a good job (well, nobody has told me otherwise, so far).  But I would like to get it out in front of a bigger audience.  Do my readers talk about it to other people? Shilling for me?  My sales figures would indicate -- not too much.  Not that I'm laying a guilt trip on anyone other than myself.  I'm still mastering the arts of marketing.  And happily, there is no expiration date on the book: it will ALWAYS be timely for writers! Even if I say so myself.

Anyway, I will eventually cough up the Baker & Taylor fee. (I still need to do some research on the whole process.)  It's just deciding when to add this to my debt-load.

The business of publication is a new realm for me.  And more complicated and detailed than I anticipated.  Hey ho.

It's frustrating to be in a situation where I need to be writing - as in, if I want to make an income at it, I need to get the words down.  The job hunting in show business goes very slow (over-qualified for most listed jobs).  So, I feel I ought to be working on the projects that are most likely to provide a monetary return the soonest.

Unfortunately, my creative impulses aren't cooperating.  I suppose I could be more disciplined and just focus more clearly on the projects I want to get out first.  But I've been a bit too haphazard of late, not writing as much (working on other things, like Mythcon and household matters).  So I figured, I would just work on whatever thing had a stronger impulse when I sat down.

The result has been rather mixed.

One friend's reaction to my recent posts about my education was to suggest that I write a memoir.  I was at first dismissive, but the idea took root.  With the result that I laid out an outline, basically looking back at my life and how things shaped me towards becoming a writer.  I've even gotten so far as giving it a title, drawn from the intention I set for myself when I began my undergraduate career: Making Everything Count.  This has actually turned out to be an interesting exercise, as I find that many more things fed into my impulse to tell stories than I had previously thought.  But this is hardly likely to be a "serious money" project, and will take a deal of time to complete.  Still, it does prime the pump.

I have gotten some more work done on Godiva, which is good, because I do have hopes for it.  Hopes, but again, it's a long-term prospect.  It is surprising me a little bit.  For one thing, although my original intention had been to limit the points of view in telling the story (mainly to Godiva and Leofrich), the story is opening itself out.  I do try to keep the narrative focus very clear, however, and not shuffle between too many points of view within one chapter.  It is more work, though, since I have to get inside the heads of many more characters, from the 23 year old, egotistical king to the almost-15 year old daughter of the Earl of Mercia (who resents Godiva's arrival).

I have also been arranging materials for the next non-fiction project: Paper Movies: Adapting Screenplays to Graphic Novels. (Yes, I did take one friend's suggestion for the title.)  It's actually shaping up rather well, and a couple of friends in the comic book world have agreed to write some things for it: writer Chuck Dixon actually volunteered to write about the experience of adapting big screen scripts to comics (he's done a couple of these, such as Snakes on a Plane), and Colleen Doran, who I've asked to write about creators' rights on original properties (it's an important issue to her, and she has fought the battles to keep control of her own work, A Distant Soil.)  I still need to work on the outline for this book some more, and do some additional research.  But I'm hoping I'll have it in shape enough to start sending the proposal around to a couple of publishers (an advance would be very useful about now).  I also expect this will be a quicker book to write than some of my other projects.

I have been making some forward progress on The Ring of Adonel, but that does go much slower.  The story is moving into "new" territory for me, places I've only known about in my imagination, but haven't yet been. And there are some new characters coming up, and I'm finding that I'm feeling as if I'm about to meet important new people in real life. Weird.

What I really want to be working on is the short story, "The Beauty of Turbines", but it has been dancing just outside my focus / attention / discipline.  Last night, I sat down with every intention of working on it.  I even put on a CD of Strauss waltzes for inspiration.  And instead worked on Making Everything Count. 

There are, of course, other projects on the slate too: a couple of TV spec scripts (which I really should make top priority, but they won't stick there!), a feature script called Ice (involving diamond smuggling from Canada through Alaska, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers investigating), and a meditation on the Sermon on the Mount titled The Measure Dealt to Me (see the Feb. 2, 2009 entry).

As you can see, I have absolutely nothing to do.  I play games of solitaire and nurikabe to while away the time, trying to come up with ideas (actually, just procrastination in dealing with the ones already "active").

Still... I am stringing words together on various projects, which is better than not doing any writing at all.  But I could certainly use some prayers for focus (and income would be nice too -  :D).

When I turned up the chart of my undergraduate course of studies, I though posting the list would be of mild interest in showing some of my background.  But inevitably, I suppose, there was the impluse to talk at least a bit about the events of those years, and some of how they effected me.

I'd meant to post this all a couple of weeks ago, but got sidetracked.  And then I started reading Gladwell's Outliers.  I'm still only part the way into the book, but it's been in the back of my thoughts as I've looked at my own history.

I find it interesting to see the confluence of chance and intention that combined to fill out my education.

I had always been interested in mythology and mythological stories.  Yet, it's a big question as to when I might have encountered the works of Joseph Campbell, and whether I would have read Levi-Strauss and Eliade at all, if I had not had that particular mythology course (they didn't repeat it while I was at UH, I don't think).  A key turning point in my understanding and thinking about literature and storytelling lay in that class.

Would I have taken Old English at all, if the retiring professor had not wanted to teach a section of it his last semester while I was an undergraduate?  I don't know.  I do know that at University of Houston, while I was there, it was the only section of Old English that did take place.  Having had it, it made a difference when I got to graduate school.  I at least had the inital grounding for Old English studies, which qualified me for a seminar course I and two other students took (translating bits of an Old English text and studying the prosody) with Ruth P.M. Lehmann, who was my advisor on my Beowulf thesis.  Would any of that have happened without that undergrad class? I don't know.

That I even wrote the Senior Honors Thesis was a spur of the moment decision based on nothing more than wanting more instruction from an excellent teacher.  Yet, it became my education on preparing a scholarly work: reading, noting, citing, considering.  In doing it, I at least learned how to step further out of that basic essay structure learned in high school, that useful but uninspiring tool.

The chance conjunction of the Philosophic Issues class with taking Formal Logic.  The latter polinated the former.  I might fail and slip in presenting arguments and ideas from time to time, but at least I know it, can see what I skip over, and pin-point my own flaws.  I can also usually find where someone else's logic falls apart, where they're making an assumption without supporting it.  That actually turned out to be useful in doing Jeopardy! research, where I needed to be able to distinguish between an assertion of fact and a presentation of theory.

I stated in Part 1 that I had plotted my course of study to train myself for writing fantasy and science fiction.  Looking back now, I'm very satisfied that the plan "worked".  It's not that it is a guarantee of being really good at such writing - obviously, I still have to "prove" that by getting some work in front of a reading audience. 

Gladwell indicates that 10,000 hours of practice is needed to master a skill.  I was on campus these years pretty much 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, some 40 weeks a year, for 4 years.  And I read almost all that time, or was in class taking notes. I was an eat-while-reading type person, propping books up against each other while feeding. And if I wasn't reading I was writing. I figure, just in those 4 years, I racked up 6,400 of the "needed hours".  The time spent in graduate school would fill out the rest.

Do I agree with that 10,000 hour proposition?  I don't know for sure, but it seems likely.  I do know that it was in my second year of grad school (under a similar diet of study, reading and writing and my undergrad course), that I produced what I consider to be my first "masterpiece" (the long narrative poem "The Marble Don"). I would probably have been hitting the 10,000 hour mark about that point, or been close to it.

Is it important what I studied, or that I studied?  I don't know.  I am so fond of my education -- really, I did get a lot of pleasure out of it, Dreaded Professor X notwithstanding - that I like to think that it has been important in my development.  And yet, I realize that the hours spent, the willingness to apply myself to a course of study, that also was important. And that is something I should remind myself of a bit more often.  It does take some work to "master" something. And I say that as one who has been procrastinating learning PhotoShop and PowerPoint.  Neither of these require the degree of study that delving into Beowulf did, yet I put it off, simply because I can't absorb them by osmosis.

I hope I haven't bored everyone with these rambles down memory lane.  I have to laugh - after recently complaining about Proust and whether there was any point to Remembrances of Things Past, here I am, wandering through similar detritus of my experiences.  I will say, the point for me was to look back and evaluate how I got to this point.  I've been surprised at the implications of some of the things back there, not realizing or remembering their importance for me (like realizing my first encounter with Lewis was his study of Paradise Lost). I'm still not sure what to make of it all, other than to say, this is pretty much how I got to where I am.

Oh, and the jump from the scholarly track of Academia to that of Hollywood screenwriting? That was laid in too: a long time interest in theater, all the time during the undergraduate career spent hanging out in the Drama Department, and my love of Shakespeare.  That ran as an undercurrent to all the rest.

We don't "just happen" to end up somewhere.  Our choices and opportunities both contribute to the journey.