Victory and Courage to Quit

So, November has been a very eventful month and it is only half over. As I often mention around this time of year, November is NationalNovel Writing Month and this year I was more prepared than I've ever been. This showed in my first week word count of about 2000 words per day, when previously I've struggled to get to the minimum of 1,667 words. Then week two came along and I began to struggle with one of the story tracks. Words would fly out on the other, but it was agonizing going for the problem track. Around this time, I got very sick, my cat died and a few other things came up and I fell behind. I would rally and catch up or catch up enough to make success still possible, but then fall behind again when I was too sick to write or my daughter wouldn't nap. Finally, I came to realize that I was walking a fine line between sanity and pushing myself to reach this goal that no one but myself cared about. In other words I was just making myself sicker and not dealing with the grief I felt over my cat. I contemplated quitting, but the reality was that I could have pushed myself through to achieve this goal of 50,000 words so I wouldn't have to admit to myself that I was a quitter. Here’s the thing -  people always celebrate the person who pushes through to achieve the impossible goal no matter what the cost and ostracize the person who quits, but I think it takes even more courage to quit than to keep going. At least I have always found it to be so. I feel as if I have let everyone down, let myself down and in general created a big void of disappointment. I would be easier to bottle up my own feelings than to disappoint and justify. Quitting is not easy for me and it was not easy this time, but in the long term, I will be better in regards to my mental and physical health and the novel I am writing will be better. I will have time to figure out what is wrong with the story instead of just pouring out bad drivel to get a word count. And I will finish this story. I always do. Each Nano novel I have written has been completed much later and is another 30-40K longer than the 50K nano goal. So, I am taking the pressure off and taking a break to feel better.

            However, it’s not all sad news from this quarter. My Fairy-kissed Acorns made it into the Small Works art show at the Torpedo factory. Victory is mine! I’m over the moon! Unfortunately, the reception fell right at the beginning of my cold and I couldn't rally myself to attend, make new acquaintances and spread my plague to as many as possible. I was extremely disappointed, but as if to make up for it, I received a nice letter in the mail from an admirer of my drawing. How often does that happen? I won’t copy the whole note here, even though I am tempted, but will mention that the words “luxury, beautiful and vibrant colors” were used in the letter. So nice!!!! I’m going to keep the note forever in my little art scrap book! So, if you are ever impressed with someone’s creation, please do not be afraid to tell them. I promise they will appreciate it. :)

            In conclusion, it has been a memorable month and will probably continue to be so. Keep tuned for whatever comes next. 

Fairy-Kissed Acorns

While walking at a local park, I came across acorns that were not the traditional brown or even the premature green, but a myriad of fall colors. Like a magpie, I collected pockets full. To prove the acorns were really this color, I took several photos, but I wanted to draw them from a still life. I had to get cracking before they turned to common brown acorns. Here is the result. This will be my next entry into the art league show and possibly into an online show. Except for some framing work, I am done with art for a while so I can participate in Nanowrimo.

                                                               Fairy-Kissed Acorns 

Butterfly of the week

Took longer than I thought, but here is the latest butterfly.

Art and rejection

 Today I was rejected from another show. To be fair there was about a 20% chance my art would be accepted based on the number of entries/space. I know fantastical art is not enthusiastically received at everyday galleries, but I decided to start trying again. For this first show, I didn’t enter my best work even though that is the rule. My best work is unframed, unfinished or in another show. I entered two pieces that I drew over ten years ago in hopes they would be accepted and sell so I wouldn’t have to move them around anymore. Again, I had little hope they would be accepted, but I was more disappointed by their rejection than I anticipated. While pondering why I should still feel so acutely for something that I drew over 10 years ago and that I knew was not my best work anymore, I came to a realization that those pieces of art work have become anchors weighing me down.

Allure of the Spinners

            How can I move forward with art work while I have all these pieces hanging about reminding me that I am not good enough yet? I can make all the excuses in the world such as the little exposure they have had and not finding the right art lover, but no matter what they really are, to me they have come to represent failure. They served their purpose to me while I was drawing them, but I should have moved them out of my life the minute I finished them, because now, after all these years have passed, I somehow feel as if I should be ashamed of them. Even though, when I look at them, I can still see past their faults into the beautiful bits and the joy I had in drawing them, but as soon as I stop looking at them they become the drawing that no one else likes. Since they are an extension of me, it becomes the part of me that no one else likes and then soon becomes a ridiculous declaration rattling around in my head that, “No one likes me.” All the while, the reality is that I have had many complements on them and people like me just fine independent of my art work. Still since they have become symbolic of failure instead of what they really are, the work of a young inexperienced artist, they must go. “Allure of the Spinners” will go to my mother and I will find a good and loving home for “In the Dust.” This show was the last chance for these two drawings.

In the Dust

But the thought of giving a drawing away is heart rending in its own way. All my drawings are my children and it is very hard to part with them sometimes. I’ve given others away, but I’ve given them to people who will appreciate them and treasure them. Unfortunately, there are a few drawings that I can’t imagine anyone liking enough to hang in their home and “In the Dust” is one of those. It is easier to imagine a stranger wanting to buy it than to figure out which friend will treasure it. What if I offer it to someone and they don’t like it? They might accept it out of politeness, look at it in horror and only hang it when I come for a visit. What if it ends up in the dumpster someday or is donated as one of those sad Goodwill pictures? How can I give it away when this might be its fate? I’d rather sell it to a stranger than risk giving it to a friend, because by paying the money for it the stranger has proved he wants to own it and love it, but I have yet to find that stranger. So, you see how I have chained myself to these ten year old drawings. I love them and they make me feel rejected all at the same time, but in the end they have to go. Good bye, little pieces of me. 

A Million Blue Butterflies

A couple months ago, I painted some blue butterflies and I liked them so much I've decided to paint a million more of them. So I have my start with a score of mini canvases to paint and here is my first butterfly.

Here is my work table covered in canvases in varying degrees of sky, cloud and so on..

Oil painting class projects

So here are a few paintings in varying degrees of completion from the class I took on color and oil painting. 

This is my first portrait with oils and even though it has problems, I am quite happy with it. BTW, she isn't angry. That is just the neutral face of a model that has to sit for 3 hrs while beginners squint at her from behind their easels. 

All in al, the class was a fun and interesting experience even though no one talked. 

Procrastination and its purpose

So I spend a lot of time not working while at my computer supposedly editing. There are too many breaks for tea and cookies and words with friends. In the month of August, where I had set a goal of editing a chapter a day for about 30 chapters, I have edited three. Many days I do something else instead of edit.

Yesterday, while doing a search and destroy for all the bad grammar habits I have, I stopped constantly to do something else. Then I realized something. My despair and self criticism would build up to a peak and I would want to quit because I was convinced I sucked and that I would never be a writer and that it would be embarrassing for anyone to read this drivel! At this point I would take an internet or words with friends break and then come back to my editing in a few minutes. So even though I am procrastinating for a majority of my allotted editing time, I am also moving forward. If I didn't take these little breaks for perspective, I would probably give up. So in reality facebook and words with friends is preserving my writing aspirations while making me the slowest editor on the planet.

So happy writing and happy procrastination!

Art and Color

I'm taking a painting class, all about color. It's half way through and while I feel as if I am learning new concepts, it hasn't answered in the social department. No one talks and there are times where I feel like screaming out at them, "I talk to a toddler all day. Please say something." But I don't and instead, I hand out candy in hope of making friends. Oh well. I'll have to buy friends with candy somewhere else. Here are the fruits of my labor. I liked the white urn, but please no more monochromatic stills.

And here is the ice dragon. I thought I would be done by now, but it is lacking that little something that makes it finished. So, I am putting it away for a while in hopes that the finishing touch will pop into my head. 

Editing – The final decision

So, after months of editing and rewriting I have decided to stop trying to salvage this version of the book. It was a hard decision to make and really took the last two months where I stepped away from the project to come to peace with it. Now that I’ve decided, I feel good about the choice.

            How did I just decide to throw away 6-8 months of work and start again? Well, it started when I just couldn’t keep editing the last quarter of my book. There was such a divide between the tone of the writing and the way the story had developed in my head. It was like try to paint over black wall paint. No matter how I changed things, the original tone of the book would show through. I also rewrote the first chapter for a writing workshop that I didn’t end up attending, but the first chapter was so much better as it was rewritten that I can’t go back to the original version. The tone is dark and fits the book. The characters are more real and instead of just going through the motions required by the plot, they are alive and feel the difficulty of their situation. I can’t wait to bring this through the whole book. So, yes, I am going to rewrite from scratch because I think the story and characters are worth it.

            And no, I don’t regret the time I've already spent on this project or the look at it as a waste of time. It was invaluable as a learning tool. Everything I have done on this book has been a huge step into making me into a better writer. First, it was the first book I ever finished and that is a huge accomplishment and still amazes me. I can look back at this book and still have that sense of wonder and accomplishment that I finished a book. Next, it forced me to take a critical look at my writing abilities and ask myself how I could improve. Taking the time to seek out ways to improve and learn was so important. This book has always been a “Throw Away” book (meaning I wasn’t emotionally attached to the idea and so wasn’t afraid of screwing it up). This idea gave me the freedom to learn without self criticism. Now, I think I’ve learned and am ready to move on and try again. Of course, the years I have spent with these characters and their story has changed my feelings towards the story and is no longer a throw away book, but I think I have grown enough as a writer to not be terrified at the thought of trying to write a good book. I am sure that terror will return sometime in the future, but right now I am excited to begin again. 

Eleven Floors of Art

Yesterday, I went to visit the Artomatic in Arlinginton, VA. This is an event where an old office building is filled with art before it is torn down. In this case, the 11 story building housed over 1,300 artists. Imagining that each artist presented 10 pieces, that is over 13,000 pieces of art. I confess; I didn’t see it all. We visited about 3.5 floors before I experienced art burnout. I wish I hadn’t waiting until the last day to go, but had planned several days so that I had a chance to experience and savor all the art.

Well, maybe not all the art. One of the wonderful things about artomatic is there is no gate keeper. There is no juror inflicting his particular taste on the show. There is no austere woman telling artists they are not good enough. On the other hand, one of the bad things about the Artomatic is that there is no gatekeeper saying that someone might need to practice a little more before they try to show some work. Everyone and anyone can exhibit. This lack of a gatekeeper creates quite the diverse experience.

What I came to realize while wandering through is that I don’t appreciate most art. I don’t get it. I don’t think it’s beautiful. I could do without it. That said, I don’t believe my opinion on should make a difference to anyone except me (and maybe my husband who might be inspired to buy me artwork). I’ve often wondered what other people saw in the art they decided to hang in their homes. I have no love of pastoral landscapes or elephants working in India. I don’t want to continually look at scenes from city streets or people at work or play. I don’t want to take the time to delve into the meaning of a piece of art. I want to see it and have everything it is conveyed to me in a blast of wonder. Then maybe I’ll be interested in what the artist was thinking. As I wandered through the Artomatic, I felt like I was just walking through rooms of noise with the occasional moment of silence when I found the art that spoke to me. These tended to be macro-photographs of nature, serene natural or abstract paintings, trees of any kind and anything with beautiful lines or bold colors. In other words, art that felt soothing. I hate to confess it, but I also walked out being amazed at how much bad art there was in the world. That is a secret, mean thought, so please don’t tell anyone. However, whenever I have mean thoughts, I am rarely content to let them stand unassailed. I must investigate and break them down to their primal elements. After ruminating over this thought for a day or so, I finally came to an epiphany. Art is about taste. I know, that ‘s boring and unoriginal, but here come the original part. My artistic taste reflects my preference for how I live my life. I love being in nature and often long for the childhood days where I could be out in the world and never hear the sound of mankind. I love the quiet wind in the trees. I love the small changes that happen every day from the bursting of a flower to the sprouting of a fungal castle on a rotting log. Art is supposed to inspire emotion and I hate being riled up, sad or riddled with angst. I want to be soothed or humored. So of course I am not going to appreciate art depicting riotous crowds on city streets or profound political messages. However, I realize as an introvert, I am in the minority preferring to be away from people and the riot of life. The type of life I enjoy is directly reflected in the type of art I enjoy. And for other people, I am absolutely positive this is true as well. So people who love mankind and civilization are going to love art based on it. I am sure many of those people walk into the rooms where I linger and walk right back out again because they are bored out of their mind. That’s OK. More solitude for me. So, I am so glad I went to Artomatic for the sole reason that it allowed me to reach this realization. Without seeing so much art in one place, I doubt I would have muddled it out. The new look on art will also have bearing on the perception of my own art. When I show my art to people, everyone seems to love it, but few people want to buy it. I won’t deny there was a little sting in that. For many years, I have tried to bend my subject matter to more mainstream subjects, with the hope that I would make some sales, but I could never really get there. I don’t think I could paint a bowl of fruit if my life depended on it. The few mainstream pieces I have painted, I got through solely on the challenge of the work, not inspiration from the subject matter. My recent epiphany has led me to the conclusion that I shouldn’t try to change. There are people out there for me. They are just a smaller set of the population than the fruit and barn lovers and it will take longer for us to find each other. Thanks Artomatic for giving all those artists a chance to reach their people and for leading me to a new way of looking at art.

 Also, just a quick promo of the artists I know who displayed art at the Artomatic.

Jennifer Stone – Definitely one of my people
Blair Jackson – Not for me, but I could easily knock off 75% of my Christmas list in her art store.
Lisa M. – Her art makes me smile.

Harry Potter Tent

As I think constantly about writing, even when I am not writing, random thoughts often pop into my head. Here’s a sampling.

I have a tent. It is a two person tent and somewhat sentimental since it was the very first piece of camping equipment that was all mine and shiny new. That was over a decade ago now, but for one glorious summer I lived in that tent in adult summer camp, (AKA as a research assistant). A couple days ago, I set it up in the sunroom for Sabrina to play in. Little did I know that in the years since I had set it up, it had acquired a musty, pee smell. Don’t ask me where this smell came from since it has always been stored in a dry place and I don’t make a habit of peeing on or in my tents. However this smell has pervaded the sunroom and makes me completely glad I’m not obligated to sleep in the tent. It also brings to mind the tent in Harry Potter that is described as smelling of cat pee. The description passed over me at the time as something of little concern, but after having minimal contact with my own pee tent, I refuse to buy the idea that anyone could have happily cloistered themselves in a pee tent for any length of time. I’ll bet you it wasn’t “you know who” or horcruxes making them cranky, but the constant smell of cat pee. So if you are a writer, be careful about what smells you subject your characters to and be sure they react properly.

Next random thought: I am listening to Elizabeth Gaskell’s book, Wives and Daughters. There is a character who used to pride herself on her very pretty blushes. In fact, if you read literature of bygone eras, blushes were then often praised as a woman’s booty-liciousness is praised now. In modern literature a blush has been reduced to an embarrassing reddening of the face and is not considered an asset. Why is that? Well, I blame makeup. Between cover up and rouge, the only blushes that would be visible would be the ones from extreme embarrassment that would bring the blush right up into the ears. The last time I blushed like that was after doing something completely stupid and it was definitely not a “pretty” moment or result. So, moral of the story: Blushes are dead (so don’t write about them) and Booty-liciousness is in (so round out your prose to your heart’s content.)

Well, writing randomness is at an end. Happy writing or tweeting or facebooking or whatever. 

Moments of Bliss

I started going to a counselor today for anxiety. She repeated some of the same things I've been reading about in a book called Mindfulness. The idea of mindfulness is about living in the present, actually experiencing the moment instead of running on autopilot. How many times have you suddenly come back into yourself and realized that you drove all the way to work, but can’t remember the drive? Happens to me all the time. This book is about taking back your life moment by moment. It’s big on meditation and one of the meditation practices is about eating a raisin. In this meditation you use all your senses to fully appreciate the raisin. The idea is to be fully and completely present for the experience. But you don’t need a raisin or meditation for this moment. It happens all the time. Every time you take that first sip of the uber choco mega foamed crumbly carmel delight you get as a treat, you are fully present in that moment. It happens every time you take that first bite of a meal in a restaurant. First kiss! When you have that first kiss with someone really special, are you thinking about how you need to wash your car? NO! You 100% focused on the present moment and all the physical sensations happening. How about that moment when you first relax into your bed, snug under your covers ready to go to sleep? Makes me smile just thinking about it. There are a million moments where we are fully present and attentive, but the real tragedy is how quickly we let them go and move back into our harried existence. The second sip might as well be dishwater for all the attention we pay it. And how quickly the shine rubs off that new relationship. The instant you are comfortable in bed, your mind starts racing ahead to tomorrow. Instead of realizing how much we ignore in life, we seek out those moments by buying a super coffee treat every day, every hour, until the specialness has worn away because we are no longer taking the time to be mindful of the experience. Yet we remember those moments of mindfulness and seek them out and compare the rest of our lives to them. So, I guess I am saying to enjoy the second sip and the last sip just as much as that first sip. Extend out your moment of bliss if you can.

            Just a note on mediation. I made a commitment to myself to meditate every day for just 15 min. I kept the promise today and found it enjoyable. I was very calm and centered afterward. That lasted all of 5 minutes. Then I opened my computer and started reading the twitter feed. I could feel my calm center fragmenting away into little pieces as I skimmed down. I found myself reading a story about murder even though I didn’t want to read about murder, but had to read because I didn’t know what a conker was. Then I had to google a conker. And it was, as the article said, a ridiculous reason to murder someone. And it was ridiculous that I was reading about it. I had in just a few minutes managed to stray from my calm center into the chaos of the very large global world we live in. I resolved right there to unfollow a bunch of twitter feeds like BBC. I thought it would be a good way to keep informed since I don’t watch or read the news, but really, if a catastrophe occurs, someone will tell me about it. So, time to declutter and enjoy another sip of cinnamon tea.

Rose Solar light

I made a solar rose using milk jugs. I am pretty stoked about it. Here's how to make your own.

Supplies: Cheap Solar light, Tape, White Spray Paint (not Krylon), Scissors, 1-2 cleaned milk jugs, Hot glue gun, Spare Hot glue gun (in case the first one explodes in a fiery death), Glue sticks, wooden skewer or chopstick, and extra fingers to replace the burned ones. 

 Disassemble the light. Keep the stake for gardening or other craft projects. For this project you only need the part that houses the light.

 Cover the light bulb and the solar panel with tape. Spray paint until coated in white. I used Krylon white and it came out a little tacky. Hopefully you will have better luck with a different brand.

For the very center of the rose I used a piece of the handle from a 1/2 gallon and started gluing petals from there. Use the skewer to press the petals in place until the glue hardens so you don't burn your fingers.

 If your glue starts smoking and the glue comes out yellow, please throw it out before it explodes.*

*Note that the glue stick in the barrel has turned black.
*In other news, I now know that when facing a ball of fire, I do not scream like a baby, but curse like a sailor. Hopefully my toddler never learns this fact about me.

Tip 1 - Use a sharp pencil to etch your line into the milk jug and then you won't have to worry about the line of say a marker showing on your petals.

Tip 1 - It helps to have a curve on attachment point of the petal. They sit in place better.

Tip 2 - The inner petals should be smaller, but the outer petals can all be cut from the same pattern.

And here is your finished rose.

Now, I have some ideas about what I could do with my rose. The important thing is to be aware of how light will charge your rose. The solar panel has to get some light.

1) Flip it over during the day to charge and then use it like a tea light at night. 

2) Cut a loop (see below) to glue around the light and hang it in a window, sun room or on a tree outside for a floating, glowing rose. 

3) Make more and more and more of them to great a hanging, spiraling rose chandelier! 

If you have ideas for where to put them, please comment below. Happy Up-cycling!

Art brain

I don’t want to edit anymore. I want to paint and draw, so why fight it. Here’s a picture of the background progress on my Ice Dragon. I like it! It looks like velvet. It’s slow work, but also very zen.

I also got a book called Perspective by David Chelsea (recommended by RuthLampi at Balticon). It's an awesome book and is totally blowing my mind. I have wanted to learn to paint distant landscapes and cityscapes forever. A few years ago, I took an art class for just such a purpose, but it turned out to be useless. I have been really discouraged about it since. None of the books seemed to have what I was looking for. They all seemed to talk about fading into the distance and all. I understood, but it never looked right when I tried it. This book is teaching me why and I love it. It feels like I have been given the keys to the kingdom of art or something and I am only a third of the way through the book! I think all this time I have been looking for a class on perspective, but that's not something they teach in community art classes.  I used to figure out perspective slow way - with trial and error, but now I’ve been given rules and tools to use. Watch out world! Anyway, I love learning new things! Here is a sketch I did last night while learning the rules. It’s not much, but you can see the beginnings of a city block and it doesn’t look wonky! 

These are some flags I designed  on a whim for the novel I am writing. They are just design sketches, but they make me happy!

Let’s call it research…

I started looking for books on survival in extreme cold and/or the art of sled dogging. I am calling it research because I wrote a novel last year that was set in a very cold climate and I am sure, despite having grown up in the frigid upper peninsula of Michigan, I have made a few mistakes that will cause experts to rupture their frostbitten anatomical bits in outrage at my ignorance. So after some searching, I found “Ten thousand Miles with a Dog Sled” written by Hudson Stock in 1914 about both survival and sled dogs. It has proven interesting so far, but a bit hard to follow with all the side notes.

Already I have learned that the extreme temperatures I had proposed for my novel would make the journey impossible because 1) coal oil freezes at 40 below, 2) acetylene requires water, which also freezes and 3) Batteries, which have not been invented yet in my story world, also freeze. The only thing that seems to work in extreme cold is actual fire and wood. Of course my character is traveling across a barren, treeless windswept snowy wasteland, where there is nothing to burn. I guess there will be some rewriting involved here.

            The author is very good about describing the various methods of traveling over treacherous terrain, which has been interesting and informative, but he glossed over the terrain that was most like the one in my story. I guess this means I wrote it correctly in that there isn’t much to tell about the difficulties. I may go back and add some more obstacles just for fun though, like rivers bursting through the ice like a geyser from the pressure building up below the frozen surface. Sounds fun doesn’t it!

Also a few quotes struck me as amusing so I thought I would share them here since we can assume that he was writing these quotes in about 1912 and so they were written 100yrs ago.

“The time threatens when all the world will speak two or three great languages, when all little tongues will be extinct and all little peoples swallowed up, when all costume will be reduced to a dead level of blue jeans and shoddy and all strange customs abolished” (His description of the treatment of Alaskan natives reminds me of modern day treatment of the indigenous people of the Rainforest. Over a century later and we still haven't learned any better.)

“The phonograph is becoming a powerful agency for disseminating a knowledge of English among the natives throughout Alaska, and one wishes that it were put to better use than the reproduction of silly and often vulgar monologue and dialogue and trashy ragtime music.” (I wonder how he would feel about reality TV and Jersey Shore.)

Where have all the happy books gone?

Once upon a time, I would count down the days until my monthly audible credits for audio books and when I would mark the calendar for releases of the latest book release in about a dozen series I was reading. Not so any more. I have credits piling up, waiting for me to use them. I have gift cards languishing waiting to be converted into literary adventures. I learn about the new releases months later through the ‘recommended for you’ page. What happened to me?

The truth is I am afraid of books. They grab a hold of me and suck me into a vortex of terror, anguish and fascination. I can’t put them down. I stay up too late. When I had a job, I would occasionally skip a day of work. And even when I wasn’t reading, I was still preoccupied with the story so that I was just coasting through life while my brain was elsewhere. Even worse than the addiction, were the mood changes. When I read a story where the POV character is in constant danger, my mood takes a down swing and I can actually head into a mini depression over it. I had to stop reading several epic fantasy series because of this. Now, when I get a new book, it might sit in the queue for a while before I get up the nerve to read it. So where did this sudden aversion to reading come from? I think it has to do with the tone of books that are available today. Even series that begin in a light hearted way such as Harry Potter seem to eventually go over to the dark side.

So where are the happy, inspiring books? Why do books always have to be about the darkest parts of human nature? Remember to the classics where the worst event may be a death by heart attack or an unsanctioned marriage (Anne of Green Gables, and Jane Austen books) yet millions of people still read these books. My favorite romance of all time is between Anne and Gilbert, but they never even kiss. And I am not a prude either. I enjoyed all of Sookie Stackhouse’s romps as much as the next girl but that kind of thing doesn’t feed the soul. I think current books lack a wholesome, feel good sort of nourishment. We’ve gone too far in the other extreme with sex and violence.

I heard recently that books/movies are a way to teach a person how to react in a situation. So watching a horror flick teaches you how to handle fear. Not necessarily the actions of the characters, but your own physical experience of adrenaline and decision paralysis. I think heard this on Writing Excuses. (Love that podcast!) Anyway, so if we can teach people how to experience fear, worry, horror, sadness, why can’t we teach them all the other things to? I am not talking about pleasure and happiness, but things like making the right decision (even though it was hard), and being rewarded for it. Too often in current entertainment, we take the ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ approach and all good people are trodden on. (Look what happened to Eddard Stark, all for helping out his friend). It seems like the lesson is if you’re a good person, you will be punished. White hat characters are out of fashion. Everyone is ecstatic about grey characters and I understand the need to get away from strictly black and white characters, but like everything else, there are varying degrees of greyness. Not every bad character has to start out good and go bad. Not every good man has to be tempted into evil or be ruined because he resisted. Sometimes characters are white and always do the right thing and sometimes people are just plain bad. Not every character has to be some shade of grey. I think this urge to mix everything up has taken away the contrasts and left us with the muddy color which is about as satisfying as blending your ice cream sundae with a liverwurst sandwich. So let’s step back a little and let a few characters be white or black and get what they deserve. You know who does this well? Joss Whedon.

Think about Firefly. Simon makes the tough but right choice to sacrifice his comfortable life to save his sister. There is nothing twisted about their relationship, but an honest to goodness sibling love and loyalty. He is a good character (but not perfect) and in the end he and his sister are free. Kaylee is upbeat and loveable. Sometimes bad things happen to her, but it never destroys her and in the end she gets what she wants. Captain Tightpants tries so hard to be a dark man, but always does the right thing. Wash…sad. But he died in his moment of triumph. There was no endless torturing of the audience making us feel hopeless, horrible and helpless. No, his death was clean and the remaining characters felt the grief for us so we could shed a few tears and move on with life. I could go on about Firefly/Serenity forever, but my point is that there is enough of the wholesome meat of life in the story to develop a near cult following despite its short run. Imagine how differently you would feel if Wash had died during torture and Zoey had turned bitter. What if Mal and Inara got their lust on right away and never felt anything deeper? What if they never managed to reform Jayne, but left him the bastard he was and eventually had to shoot him? Hard to imagine, but it happens in so many stories where the instant arousal of emotional response of with sex, death or damnation has replaced the more real feelings of love, loss and eventual triumph. This, I think is the root of my dread of modern books. They torture and wrangle me without the payoff of the deeper feelings.

Anyway my challenge to all you F and SF writers out there. How about some meaningful, inspiring stories that don’t involve the end of the world or the maiming of any of your characters? I include myself in this challenge because my stories are as dark as the rest. Oh, and please stop destroying the world/life as we know it. Apocalypse is dead. (Haha!)

Balticon Whirlwind Tour

AKA: How not to do a con as an introvert (or maybe just as me)

I made it to Balitcon this year despite having a full family life, however I went about it all wrong. Somehow, I think I should have…well...I'm getting ahead of myself. First. Let’s start by stating that I am an introvert. This is not news to me. I have known it my whole life, but after reading TheIntrovert Advantage, I know a lot more about what makes me tick. Also within the last week I was diagnosed with moderate to severe anxiety. I am still digesting that one, but it explains a lot. Anyway, that all aside, I have been thinking about Balticon all month and whether I should attend or not and whether I should enter some art in the art show or not. I decided I wasn’t ready for the art show and was not likely to get any return on it. Also, I didn’t want to drive up there to drop off and pick up my art. I live within 2 hrs of Balticon, so I thought I would just drive in to attend. If I had to stay overnight, I wouldn’t have gone at all. In the end I decided to just attend on Saturday and get as much out of it as I could. My goals were to meet people and start learning my way around the social customs of approaching and talking to an actual, live Editor/Agent.

            Saturday morning, I left home with enough time to encounter traffic, get lost or wait through a long registration line, but not all three. As the 2 hr drive progressed and I took a wrong turn in construction zone and then waited in accident traffic I became increasingly agitated. By the time I registered and walked into the program 10 min late, I was feeling pretty frantic. Then I bounced from panel to panel, without giving myself time to do anything else. The only time I talked to people was when they approached me. Even worse, I cut conversations short so that I could go to another panel. Sigh. This was especially stupid in retrospect when I found that most of the panels I had chosen had nothing new to offer me. I have been studying the business of writing long enough to know the basics, like don’t be a jerk, etc. I am officially giving myself permission to stop going to those kinds of panels and choose something totally new and outside my realm of experience. One incident that has me laughing at myself in a sad sort of way happened right after a Multi-creative program, one of the more interesting panels I attended. I was waiting for a pizza at the café and one of the panelists walked by and saw me. I had asked a few questions during the program and so he wanted to follow up. He, PatrickSaffiddo, was very nice and offered to send some helpful info after the con. I almost asked if he wanted to talk and have some of the too large pizza that I had bought with the intention of sharing, but I got in the way of myself and didn’t offer. As I circled the hotel with my pizza, I saw him two more times, but it was even more awkward to offer each time. I laughed because it was like the universe was trying to help me along in this goal of meeting people, but I just couldn’t get in gear. I think he thought I was laughing at him at one point, but I hope not. Sorry Patrick!

            Towards my other goal of meeting and talking to editors, more for practice than as a serious endeavor to get a book contract, also ended in a similar failure. I had attended a few panels by editors about their books/companies. I marked out who they were so later I could talk to them. However, by 3pm, the time designated to socializing, I was literally too worn out to do anything. I ended up grabbing a bookmark and running away from an artist’s table because I couldn’t remember what I had wanted to talk to her about. I tried to sit calmly outside and regain some energy, but it didn’t work. Later, I wound up sitting on a lobby couch next to a writer who I had questions/comments for based on a program we had both attended. It probably would have lead into an easy conversation, but I was just too exhausted to make the attempt. Then an editor walked by headed to the bar, where I could have offered to buy him a drink and picked his brain about writery stuff. I just sat there in a stupor, trying to decide if I should push through to the 5:30 panel I wanted to attend or just drive home. I went home. I was almost too tired to drive home. (Apologies to the guy I cut off in an unexpected lane merge).

            So, what did I really get out of Balticon? Well, I learned how an anxious introvert should not do a con.

1.      Do not drive in the morning of. Arrive the day before and get a room.

2.      Do not attempt to scope out and then meet editors in one day. Scope them out on day one. Research them. If you see them later, when you are peppy, talk to them. They are people too. :)

3.      Do not put so much pressure on yourself to get it all done according to schedule.

4.      Do not attend to back to back panels. Even if you feel at a loss for something to do, just go to every other panel. Relax and let things happen naturally.

5.      Go back to your room for a nap or to relax. Don’t worry if you miss out on something because if you don’t rest, you aren’t “there” for it anyway.

So my resolution for future cons is to do it the right way. Stay at the hotel and commit fully to the con. I was trying to balance between family time at night and enjoying the con, but in the end I just stressed myself into exhaustion. No more of that. 

Editing Continued - The Wrap up

Since I started this project of editing my book 5 months ago, I've gone through three definite stages of learning with editing. I can look at my book as 4 separate parts. Part 1: mild editing and a large learning curve. Part 2: More vivid writing, but still needs a lot of work on the scenes and connectivity of the story line. Part 3: All knowledge to date incorporated to date, but somewhat disconnected from the remaining book because I have changed some of the story line. Part 4: Pristine, untouched, original draft.

            Just thinking about those stages makes my head hurt. In a way, my book was better before I started than it is in its current state. I will compare it to moving into a house, because that is something that happens in my life quite often. When you move in, there are these lovely empty clean rooms, just like the clean empty outline of my story, AKA the first draft. Then the movers come and shove boxes and furniture everywhere. There isn’t enough room for everything and you begin to despair at the mountain of work ahead of you. Then you start opening boxes and unpacking them and rearranging furniture. There is stuff everywhere. Books piled by the wall because you can’t get to the shelf where they are going to go. Piles of wrapping paper. Boxes flattened and tossed out (text that is no longer useful to your story). Dishes piled in the living room because the box was put in the wrong room and it was too heavy to move so you had to unpack it, but got distracted by the search for the Tivo wireless antennae, which had to be found right now because the cable guy was due any minute and the antennae was essential for installation. And suddenly its night time and you have to go to bed because you are dead tired, but the sheets for the bed haven’t been found yet, so you just keep unpacking boxes like an automaton. Finally after an exhaustive night’s sleep where you frantically unpacked boxes in your dreams because you were looking for the baby, which some stupid pot smoking mover packed away neatly under all the china, you wake to reality, which is not much better. Don’t you feel a little frantic just reading about this?

There is a point of despair in every move, and I feel like I will never get through. Nothing is going to fit. I am going to be tripping over boxes for ever and I will always feel jittery because I live in a maze of boxes and paper. That is how I feel about my editing process right now. It’s such a mess and at this point, my book is worse than it was in the first draft, in the same way the empty house was cleaner than the half unpacked state. At least the first draft was a coherent story without characters popping up unexpectedly and other characters attitudes randomly changing.

            But, I kept chipping away at the boxes of stuff and eventually the house comes together. So it will be with this manuscript. Right now it is in an ugly stage, but it can only get better. I will have to finish out this round of edits and then go back to the beginning and apply the knowledge I acquired later to those first chapters. In a way, my book is a living and changing thing that will grow as I learn more. I also won’t be the same person I was when I started this process, not only because the process itself will have changed me, but already 5 month have passed and trust me, life went on around my editing project. I have been angry, scared, sad, happy, and all of the other emotions that constitute life, but also can change a person. So, the me that began will never be the same me that finishes a project that requires this much time.

            So, that all said, what will I do differently next time? I will story map first. I think I am kind of doing it backwards now, but don’t really want to change midstream since I am afraid something will get forgotten or undone if I change the process now. Right now I am going to keep unpacking one box at a time even if they are in the wrong rooms.

If you are editing a project, good luck and keep at it!

Editing Continued – Writing a scene

Despite all the other wonderful discoveries I had been making about my characters, I still struggled with scenes. I couldn’t really identify which was a scene, an incident leading up to a scene or just an event in the story. I was operating along the definition that a scene caused a bend in the story line, but I found that wasn’t always true. Sometimes a scene prevented a bend in the story line, like when a character chose not to take a particular action even though it was what they wanted. That kind of scene can happen entirely inside one character’s head, if need be. So what really defines a scene? I don’t know. I still don’t, but I will eventually learn I think.

            However, I did find this really great article about writing a scene.  By examining this and following the basic three part pattern defined here, a scene/sequel has the following three-part pattern:

scene (goal, conflict, disaster) and sequel (reaction, dilemma, decision), I was suddenly able to see where I was going wrong. It was so enlightening. What I thought were small incidents suddenly became much more important and needed to be filled out. Places where I had glossed over the reactions of each character stuck out and begged to be fixed. Moving forward, I started writing this three part pattern out for each character in a scene. This helped me look at their actions and fix those obvious places where the characters were acting wrong or worse, not reacting at all. You’ve seen this on TV, where a bomb goes off and the guy in the background doesn’t even flinch. When that kind of thing happens in a book, it just makes the writing feel dead. This is all in line with Kurt Vonnegut’s advice that “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.” I had heard that line before, but it had never really come home to me until now. I knew generally what each of my characters wanted, but by being more specific in each scene, I could more precisely fix their reactions. It felt like my story was growing up. In places where I have completed this task, the story has gone from a nebulous blobby thing to all sharp spikes and beautiful angles. Well, that is how it feels in my mind anyway. Time will tell if I actually managed to get that feeling to the paper.

            So I still don’t have a good feel for what a scene is, but I am getting closer. In those cases where I had written the same card out 2-3 times to put them in each character’s story track, I felt those were obvious places for a scene. If the incident/event was important enough to affect each character’s journey track, then it is probably some part of a scene. Since I have had all these revelations and am only about 2/3 of the way through my first serious editing attempt, I may have a few more revelations before I am finished. Who knows? Next and probably last post in this editing series will be…well, we’ll see.

Solar Lanterns

New crafty project - Solar lanterns from mustard jars and solar yard lights. 

Editing Continued – Story Mapping

In the previously mentioned workshop, I also learn more about plotting and building up suspense to scenes. I think I knew enough about this from all the books I have devoured over the years and of course, TV shows and movies that I instinctively got the basics right, but referring back to the house building metaphor, it was like a house being built by a competent carpenter with no experience. Everything will more or less function as it is supposed to. The roof will keep the rain out. The walls will keep critters out and the door will let people in. However, there will also be a lot of things to overlook and other things to shake your head at. That was my story. Now, I had intended to proceed with editing the whole thing with the current methods before I went back and mapped the story to fix all this stuff, but then I hit that chapter. The crossroads chapter. I was stuck. I felt like I could just keep going and accept that it was an ugly chapter, but I couldn’t go forward knowing it was there like a big hole in the floor of my house to be tipped toed around each time I walked through. I decided to start at the beginning and do some story mapping. Maybe that would help.

            Wow! What an amazing exercise! At first it felt like I was just rewriting the same events I already summarized -  who did what when – like a post-writing outline only on index cards. I was supposed to be looking for scenes and at incidents leading up to scenes. This is how you build tension. It wasn’t really working. Most events went unlabeled/categorized until I had a stack of events with no meaning. Then I started assigning these events to my three main characters. This lead to me ask why the event was important to that character. Sometimes I would write out 2-3 cards for the same event and put one in each characters pile because it was important to each of them for a different reason. Soon I had journey tracks, or at least that is what I call them. Each character has their own journey to make independent of the main story line and this is what I found myself defining and again, Wow!

Have you ever had those moments when you find you have done something that is completely amazing and you are generally shocked that you were able to do that? I have, but usually in art work not writing. (Don’t worry, I won’t get a big head thinking I am brilliant or anything. I’m too insecure for that. Even now, I am afraid to tell you all that I had a moment of brilliance for fear that you will find out someday that what I think is brilliant is just mediocre. Yeah, that’s the way things work inside my head. Sad, I know. Sorry.) Anyway, I had been writing with my attention focused on my POV character, but unconsciously I had written great journey tracks for my two other characters. For example, one of them wants to be the hero so desperately, but is never in the right place at the right time. I called that the ‘not quite the hero’ track. Another character has been a pawn her whole life and just wants to stand on her own, but every time she tries, she is knocked down. She starts to depend on all these crutches to get her independence, but someday, not in this book, she will have let go of those crutches and stand completely on her own. These journey tracks were not consciously planned and are that much amazing because of it.

So when I arrived at the crossroads chapter, I had a much better idea of what was to happen because I knew my characters better…where they were coming from…what they wanted. So I had to change the tone of the whole chapter from discussion to an actual argument. Well, this didn’t make rewriting/editing the chapter any easier since I hate arguing and hate it when my characters argue, but at least I had a goal in mind.

But I found that even though I had accomplished quite a bit with the story mapping, I had completely set aside the idea of scenes and incidents. That discovery process was almost as much fun as the journey tracks, but enough for today. Until next blog…

Editing Continued – the next revelation

I left you last with the question of how I made my writing come alive. Well, to be fair, I should let future readers judge if it is actually alive or just pretending. But, to me it’s more lively. Anyway, around that time, I attended my first writer’s workshop. It was a real grown up affair with tea and coffee and bowls of pistachios for nibbling and best of all – did not include a toddler. Call me horrible if you want, but for four days, I talked to adults all day long! So without regard to the quality of the workshop, I was in heaven before I even walked in the door. The door incidentally, led to the Vander Zee Gallery. Double heaven. In moments when my brain was tired, it could just wander away through the mysterious gateways of the art. My favorite place? The Birch trees with blue leaves by a river. I think that the river was off the edge of the canvas, but I knew it was there since I dabbled my feet in the water.

Anyway, back to the workshop. It was taught by David Hazard, who I had met a couple weeks before when he gave a free workshop to artists on writing Artist Statements. There were seven participants and I will tell you that I was intimidated right off. Most of the people were writing books about their life experiences or historical accounts of their amazing ancestors or real world military policy. What was I writing? A fantasy about kids going on a scavenger hunt. (Yeah, I know, when I put it like that, you don’t much want to read my book either.) But that is how I felt, like I wasn’t worthy to be there. So whenever we went around the room to talk about our projects, I would dumb it down and make it seem as insignificant as possible. I guess I was thinking that if they weren’t interested in my project, they wouldn’t look closer and then start to ask themselves why I was there. Of course, I soon realized I was being stupid. I paid a lot of money to be there to improve my writing. I was there for me, not what someone else might think. Now, before you get all up in arms about literary snobs, I would like to point out that this all went on inside my insecure little head and everyone in the workshop was kind, supportive and interested. So I forced myself to speak up and share and even confess my insecurities so that I could get the most out of the workshop. I won’t go into all the details nor do I wish to give away all of David’s tips and strategies for writing (you will just have to take his workshop yourself), but I learned two very important things.

First, to bring my writing alive, I had to bring it down into the body. That is advice directly from David. Instead of saying ‘she was scared’ you might say ‘her hair follicles tingled and her legs tensed, ready to run.’ I know that seems like ‘show, don’t tell,’ and I think it falls in that category, but it is much more focused and allows you to climb inside the POV character. After learning this, suddenly I could see where my writing lacked that luster to really make it shine and come alive. I don’t know if I am there yet, but it really made me see what I had written in a different way. So if you are reading my current draft, I believe you would be able to pick out the point where I had that revelation.

The second thing I learned is still a growing and changing thing, but in the end will help me create my elevator pitch and speaks to the theme of the story. We were doing an exercise where we were visualizing our target audience and trying to come up with descriptions of our book that would catch their interest. I was having a hard time with this because fantasy readers are a very diverse crowd of people and not all types of fantasy appeal to all fantasy readers. Again I felt like a little kid in the class, mumbling that I didn’t know the answer when the teacher called on me. The others had pretty specific target audiences: divorcees, children’s history teachers, but not me. So I laid it all out there and the group helped me come up with ideas. Not all of them were applicable, but there were a few that were spot on and one that really stuck out. “You can’t save someone who is addicted to power.” Suddenly that put a whole new view on personality on one of my characters. So as I write his actions and the reactions to those actions (which in the first draft just happened) there is purpose behind them.

So I discovered two very important things in the work shop that changed my editing process: how to bring my writing to life and the theme for my book. I also learned many other things that were applicable, but I thought I would wait until the next round of edits to incorporate them so I didn’t get over whelmed. I edited along smoothly until I hit a road block -  a crossroads chapter. It seemed so fake and vanilla and not realistic. I didn’t know what to do, but we’ll save that for the next post.

Editing continued – The beginning.

Continuing on the previous post, I have tried to edit Book I before, but I always get distracted by some other life event and never finish, so when I decided to make commitment to editing this whole book, the first thing I did was to make a check list of the chapters. This has helped in so many ways. First, I can’t really lose my place. Second, I get the satisfaction of checking another box at the completion of each chapter. Third, it breaks the vast project into manageable chunks. As someone said, “How do you each an elephant? One piece at a time.” And finally, it gives me a kind of progress bar where I could pat myself on the back when I need a little encouragement.

Now, I have been meaning to edit for a long time and some years ago, I even made a check list for each chapter. This checklist included both my own known failings in writing (such as the overuse of that) and advice from various sources, such as SFWA advice pages. Interestingly enough, I wrote the check list so long ago that I didn’t remember the meaning of some of the things on the list. So I set out to edit.

Step 1 – Speed read the chapter. Do not stop. Do not edit. Do not criticize. The idea was to get the whole chapter in my head as a complete unit before I started any editing. That was a hard thing to learn.

Step 2 – Rewriting each chapter, trying to fill in the sparse description, changing the action from telling to showing and recontracting words. (In my desperation to meet my first Nanowrimo word count, I changed can’t to can not along with all the other contractions. Needless to say, it makes the resulting language awkward, but it did the job.)

Step 3 – Go through the checklist and rework the text according to the rules. This step takes as long as Step 2 even though it seems like it should go quickly. The really tedious part is searching for each of the words and evaluating them in the text. It was so tempting to quit sometimes and just check that word off. Especially the ones I didn’t know why they were there. Words ending in –ing for example. It took me a couple chapters to figure it out. Usually I would have a phrase such as ‘He was jumping’, but it should be written as ‘He jumped.’ Anyway, even though it was ridiculously tedious to search for every word, each time I found a place where I could improve my writing, it felt like a victory. I also tell myself that I would eventually be better at writing the first draft because of this tedious editing process. To date, I have found it to be true, at least in the case of my over use of ‘that.’ But, it doesn’t mean you have to eliminate every instance of a ‘bad’ word. Use your judgment. You are asking yourself if there is any better way to write this. If not, then fine, but you have to examine it to make sure you have done your best.

Step 4. Check the chapter off this progress list and do a little pookie pookie dance.

So, as I moved through the first quarter of my book, I found that despite my editing process my writing felt a little dead at times. That was pretty discouraging. Want to know how I cured it? Tune in next blog to find out. Happy editing for all the writers out there and if there are any non writers reading, never think that pure gold pours from brilliant minds onto the screen. I wish. No, it starts out like building a house. First you muck about in the dirt for a while before you pour a bunch of slop into a form that you hope hardens into some sort of foundation. Then the real work begins.

Facing my fear…editing.

So, I’ve written two and a half books. Considering I started about a dozen before I got around to finishing the first one, I’m pretty pleased with that number. The first book was what I call ‘a throw away book.’ By this I mean, it wasn’t any great story that I had been thinking about for years or my soul’s blood pouring out on the computer screen. No. In 2008, I decided to participate in Nanowrimo and wasn’t sure of my ability to complete it and therefore didn’t want to risk any of my precious novel beginnings on something that might go down in grammatical wreckage. Instead I pulled an idea from my document where I dump such things to keep the brain’s desktop clear for the current project. I had already lost a day of writing time before I decided to jump on the nanowrimo novel train, so didn’t have time to be picky. It was an immature story idea produced by an immature mind that spent too much time in night clubs and watching action flicks where everyone looked too cool to be real. Fortunately, I had grown up enough to recognize the flaw and made the story mature by immaturing the characters from hardened adventurers to kids scrabbling for survival at the edge of their society.

And I was off. I fought tooth and nail to get those 50K words in one month. When it was over, I felt such a sense of accomplishment. I could write book! I had written a book. Even better, I kept going and finished the last 10K to get to the end of the story after the race of nanowrimo was over. But it was a ‘throw away book,’ so I made two people read it and then put it away. Until the next year, when I wrote the first 75K of the sequel. I stalled out there, leaving the second book unfinished, but all the while plotting book three and the happily ever after of my characters. Nanowrimo, that merciless bitch, came again. And I thought, no, I am not going to write in this series anymore. I am going to write something new.

And I did. The first 10K of the book had nothing to do with the previous series, but then somehow, I couldn’t leave that world. This new book, 90K in the end, was a complete story with all the right stuff. Even my writing style had improved to the point where I could hope to sell a book to a real live person instead of guilting friends into reading my books. But how could I hope to sell a book that was the fourth in a series without the first three? I pulled out book one and it was awful. Ok, that is a little harsh. It was like walking into a house you are contemplating buying and being slapped in the face by bright pink carpet and royal sugar plum purple walls. When house shopping, you have to learn to look past the cosmetic and look at the bones of the house. So with my Book 1. If Book 4 were to ever have a chance, I would have to take a close look at my fixer upper. That is how I came to embark on this editing journey that has been my goal since Dec 2011 and actual work since Feb 2012. Book 1 of the series has good bones, but now was the time to bring in the sledge hammer and the paint buckets and give it a remodel.

Also, I have known for a long time that I would someday have to edit the novels I was writing. Oh, how I dreaded the editing process. So, in the end I decided what better way to learn this new skill than on my ‘throw away novel.’ No pressure. I mean, it was still a ‘throw away novel,’ wasn’t it?

Blue Butterflies

Working on some butterfly paintings for Sabrina's room. These are my first ones. They are pretty small - practice ones really for the larger canvases, but I am having fun with them too.

Ice Dragon Project

In between writing, I have been painting away on my ice dragon. I know it is not perfect and has flaws, but I love it and am really enjoying the process. Here are a few pictures...

The Dragon


Practice piece for the frame


Start on the frame details