Traveller's Tales

There are lots of reasons to love the wintertime: snow, fires in the fireplace, lots of excuses to eat awesome food, and hot cider with rum. Mmm.

Leaving the house for work while it’s black outside, and coming home in the same visual state, however, are not reasons to love the winter.

So today, I’m pleased to announce we had a sunrise before I left the house.

To hell with the groundhog, I say. Winter, have your last big snowstorm this weekend, and I’ll toast your timely departure with one last hot cider and rum.

(Edit: as ever, the Dee does a much better job of capturing these things than I do (though, to be fair, she’s also using a much better camera and not bumbling down the road while she’s shooting): check this shot out for a better idea as to what it looked like.)

David Eddings died this week.

I first read him back in the early 80’s, when the only mass-market fiction was Tolkien, Brooks and Eddings, and when I was a very young and impressionable lad.  Oddly, I remember trying to get into the first series at book 3, not realizing it was a series, and had a wretched time of it, hiding the book under my bed in dismal failure (I got very upset in those days when I couldn’t get into a book).

A year later, I was (being forced to) clean under my bed, and I spied the book under a massive dust bunny.  Grimacing, I steeled myself, swearing I wouldn’t let this one escape again.

I didn’t.  It was glorious.  I picked up the other three in the series (the last one hadn’t come out yet) and devoured them all in a week.  His characters were awesome, their interactions so honest and believable that you had no problems believing you might one day run across Belgarath in the corner 7-11 picking up booze, or spy a uniformed Mandorallan pulling over a cursing Silk in a Corvette to give him a speeding ticket and a long, pointed lecture.  They resonated with each other, proved the strength of the ensemble performance in the fantasy genre, and it really didn’t matter what the book was about, because it was about them.

While I will not say that my writing style borrows from him in any particular way, he is most certainly a great influence in my work, in that he made me want to write.

I think it’s time to give the Belgariad another read.

Thanks again, David.  Well done.

Safe travels.

I’ve invested a lot of bitching into the painful process of ripping out a first person present tense  narrative and re-tuning it for third person past tense.  The tense is psychologically tough; the character has been a first-person thinker for quite a number of years now, so that’s what’s causing so much of  the ‘go back and re-read it, and correct all the tense mistakes’ process.  Maddening, as I generally consider my grammar to be moderately polished, and mistakes like those look seriously grade-school.

I think I’m done bitching about switching into third person though.  In fact, since I’ve already given away the game in the post subject, I’ll say I think it’s not only necessary, but it’s fixing a lot of what I didn’t realize was broken.

Yeah, stuff was broken.

Among many other things, I’m an actor.  Unlike my writing, which is on the brink of professional art, I’ve been paid many times in the past for my acting, and I’m told I’m pretty good at it.  Because of that skill set, I do a lot of dialogue in my head before I commit it to paper — give myself a little private performance, lay the characters and the scene out, figure out what dialogue sounds awkward, that sort of thing.

For the first-person narrative, I’d do the same thing to get the character’s thoughts nailed down before I wrote them.  Unfortunately, I now realize I was acting more than I was writing, and that’s where the bulk of the disconnect — which is resulting in the POV shift — took place.

It’s taken the last few reviews of the manuscript to realize it, but the first person POV was actually robbing that character of depth, because I was failing to weave external expressions and unconscious mannerisms into his internal ruminations.  I hadn’t realized it because, when I ‘did the part’ in my head, he was plenty deep, plenty conflicted, his physical confidence and mental competence short-circuited by severe disorientation, physical conflict and psychological horror.

But many of the acting cues I ’saw’ while I was doing my own internal performance failed to make it to the paper, because he was thinking to himself and I didn’t know how to fit the action into his internal dialogue.  The fidgeting, the nervous glances, the smiles a bit too wide — very, very few of these kinds of things made it to text, and so he came off as a much shallower jerk than he really is.

And really, turning people off from one of your primary POV characters isn’t such a smart thing.  Donaldson may have been able to do it, but I’m not Donaldson, and I did not want this character to be anywhere near as disliked as Covenant.

And so, I’ve made progress.  Much yet to do, but the work continues.

I’m editing.  I like what the results look like, and I think I’ll be very, very pleased with the end result.

But I am fighting a pitched battle with one of my lead characters, and he’s not giving an inch without inflicting pain or drawing blood.

This is the guy I had originally written in first person, present tense, as a way to make his thinking more accessible to the reader   (this was my theory, and my thought experiment has officially backfired and gone horribly wrong; lesson learned, mea culpa, see my other post about that).  Now I’m wrangling him into third person past, like the rest of the narrative.  What’s coming out, I like — but Oh My Freaking God he’s taking For Bloody Ever to make the transformation.

I keep re-reading the chapters I think I’ve just wrangled, only to find massive errors in tense and in person, even in the brand new stuff that’s gone in to replace the first-person ruminations.  Beyond that, I have to write, put it away, and re-read it fresh the next day because I’m not sure it’s reading true until well after I’ve written it.  The shift in POV is so jarring to me, after living with this character for so long in first person, that it’s even tough to be certain I’m writing well, and that’s not something I usually worry too much about.

I’m finding myself very interested in this phenomenon.  I’m fascinated that a mental construct like a character can associate itself so strongly with linguistic concepts (tense, point of view) that the process of revising those concepts can so thoroughly screw with my head.  It’s a serious crash course in pragmatics (not pragmatism), which I may have to dig into a bit deeper after this edit is done.

Wacky stuff.

This life thing we all do sure has some weird side trips.  Keeps things interesting, but I’m not sure I’d recommend some of them.

The one I was just on, for instance — the ‘go to the doctor for chest pains and let him tell you that your blood pressure is so high your head is about to explode’ adventure really isn’t all it’s hyped up to be.  Sure, you get some time away from work, that’s nice in theory, but it’s hardly quality vacation time.  I mean, you can’t enjoy it because you’re constantly going to some doctor or other to get poked and prodded, to get your blood sucked and your chest x-rayed and your heart stress-tested and electronically scrutinized and to get a wide variety of drug cocktails introduced to your system (“Hello, system, we’re Hydrochlorothorazide and Irbesartan, and we’re about to spend a lot of time together.”), and all the while the tour guides don’t tell you whether this is the end of the ride or just another turn.  Really dodgy design for a ride if you ask me.

Anyway, in my case it wound up being just another turn and I’m back from the trip, rowing along with the current with everyone else again, but wow does shit like that change things.  Like what you eat, how much you drink, how often and how hard you exercise, how long you sleep, how hard you can work — you know, pretty much every aspect of the crap you do every day goes through a big ol’ WTF loop and comes out the other end looking like, well, the opposite of what it did going in.  Overall, I find myself enjoying the changes I’m having to make quite a bit — almost as though I needed some sort of excuse, which is dumb, but which would not be the first time I was accused of that fault.  But those old bad habits sure do lurk.

Still no idea how this will affect my working life over the long haul, but at least there’s still a working life for me to consider and no immediate plans for doom and/or gloom.  Certainly doesn’t affect the writing, but I’ll save the updates on that for next time.

Good to be back.  Now pass the tomato slices.

I’m noticing something odd:  ever since I got my new little netbook and started writing on the bus, my job has gotten easier to stomach.

Now, maybe it’s a coincidence, which is entirely possible given it hasn’t been all that long since I started using it, but I’ve got this weird feeling that giving myself more time to do my own writing is resulting in me being better able to deal with the massive piles of bullshit that tend to get flung around at work.

So now I’m wondering if there’s a direct correlation between one’s personal artistic frustrations and one’s ability to do the “day job.”

Let me elaborate a little.

With all my time consumed by work during the week, I’ve grown resentful of all the time the paycheck steals from me, and the rigors of the job itself, combined with a not-negligible commute, have resulted in me often coming home too tired to write, or waking up too late to steal half an hour before the last bus shows up.

Enter the netbook.  While I can’t write for part of the ride (yes, I do get mildly motion sick, and the twisty windy rural roads near my house are way too twisty and windy for me to keep my lunch down if I’m trying to write), the latter part is smooth sailing, and I can get a good 30-45 minutes of writing in before we pull into NYC or leave the highways.

So now that I’ve done that for a week, I’m suddenly finding a bit more energy available for the job, find myself willing to make a bit more effort to keep things rolling along.  Which in a way doesn’t make sense, because I’m doing more than I was, but in a way it does, because I’ve recovered some great opportunities to do what I love to do.

So I guess I do think there’s some sort of correlation between having time for artistic expression and being able to deal with the mundane crap we all do to bring home the paycheck.  Don’t get me wrong, if I win the lottery I’m still outta there — but for now, this is a nice little discovery, and it’ll do nicely.

Finally, by way of backhanded review: my Acer netbook is the best money I’ve spent on myself in a long time.

(And no, I still haven’t installed World of Warcraft on it!)

I keep wanting to say something, but I’m not sure what.

I’ve learned some things in the last couple of weeks.  I’ve learned explicitly that the will to live trumps comfort or convenience every day of the week, without exception.  I’ve remembered that the only thing that matters in life is communication.  And I’ve had it demonstrated to me all too personally that, sometimes, cures kill.  Yeah, it’s been a tough couple of weeks.

I’ve also learned that some of my advice is actually pretty good, having had an opportunity to swallow it in context.  I still believe that, no matter how a relationship ends, if it doesn’t hurt like hell you were doing it wrong.  I believe that beautiful things can’t die; when we mourn, we mourn only the loss of potential, because whatever we experienced before that loss can never be taken from us.  And, finally, I believe that when you knew what the right thing to do was, and you didn’t do it, you’ve done the worst thing you could have done, whether you did something or not.

I’ve reaffirmed that my loved ones are precious to me, and learned that when people threaten them seriously I feel absolute eye-popping spit-snarling breath-stealing rage, the kind that generates massive adrenaline surges, heroic surges of strength and coordination, and really bad decisions — undoubtedly it’s from Mom’s side of the family, where the Scots hang out.  Probably not the most useful reaction it could evoke, but not one I’m ashamed of, either.

I’ve learned that “Fading Lights” by Genesis holds up better than I thought it would.  Don’t just google the lyrics, it’s not the same without the music.

And finally, I’ve reaffirmed that no matter what else, I write.

So where am I going with this?  I don’t know, really.  2009 has come in hard and heavy, and it’s warned me that there’s change in the air, but it’s also reassured me that I know who I am and what I believe.  Maybe that’s enough to weather the coming storm.

I should really pay more attention to the weather.  Dad warned me a week ago this was coming, and Shelly still had to remind me last night.  Although I’m a bit pissy about not having been able to take actual vacation time this week, I admit today I’m feeling at least a little thankful that I don’t have to take the bus in today.

Also, I’m thankful that my driveway is little more than a slightly elongated square between my house and the teeny little windy road that connects me to the rest of the world; if I had Mom’s driveway to shovel with a six to ten inch snow forecast, I’d…

…well, I’d do what I’m going to do anyway, which is have a nice hot coffee with a shot of Baileys, write a bit in a comfy chair and watch the snow fall.

Gee, I really hope the cable is sound against the weather.  Would be a real crime if it, you know, got disconnected or something, and I had to spend the day unavailable.  Man, that’d really, um, suck…

but then the spacemen abducted me, used a maser on my brain to alter my perception of the passage of time, and fed me chocolate.  It was very good chocolate, which is always nice during an abduction, but as a result of the very good chocolate, the only thing I can remember for certain is the fact that they did in fact have very good chocolate.

Damn those sly spacemen anyway.

In other news, nobody at work can function without me being physically in the building, so I have not yet been able to indulge in actual vacation time yet, despite having been scheduled to indulge in exactly that kind of time for the entire week.  In this regard, the aforementioned chocolate is not quite as effective at making me forget details, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.  Primarily bad at the moment, as it results in much weeping and gnashing of teeth, but I expect it’ll be good in hindsight.

Lastly, someone whose work I quite like is showing a preliminary interest in the manuscript.  This is actually an incredibly cool thing and something I’d much prefer to turn into a headline while leaping from one tall building to the next (with or without a cape), but I must reasonably temper this news because (a) “preliminary interest” is not equivalent to “ready to purchase lock, stock and barrel,” and (b) I still have a quantity of residual chocolate to consume.

That is all.  More when the chocolate lets me remember I need to post again.

The last few months have been hell on my creative drive.

As much as I like to bitch (check the size of the ‘bitching’ tag on the left), this actually isn’t one; it’s an observation, and perhaps a diagnostic, but not a bitch.

I’ve always been fond of saying that the job is a paycheck, not Art, which is code for giving myself an excuse for not getting incredibly stressed out to the point of going bug-eyed and wondering where the sharp cutlery is when I deal with the inevitable brats, idiots and egotists at work.  I’m in advertising, so not only do I get those separately, they often come in cunning combinations of the three — which is why it’s so important I maintain that distinction.

Lately I’ve come under the guidance of a Man of Business.  I am not categorizing him in this in this way to mock him, nor am I engaging in the art of sarcasm in any way when I say that.  I say it, because this is a man for whom his job IS his art.  Having made this observation, it’s actually profound to watch him in action, and proof positive to me that for every medium, there is an Artist.  Subtle nuances of human interaction are the clearest indicators to him; shifts in process alert him to emergencies buried deeply in complex projects, and for one of the very few times in my life I find myself constantly learning.

It has, however, been my great misfortune to join forces with this fellow at precisely the moment the business decides to collapse in upon itself with all the fury of an obsessive-compulsive chasing after a white whale.  As a result, the Artist has gone manic in an attempt to save said business from consuming itself in a cannibalistic orgy the likes of which even the Donner Party would have balked at, and my life, as a result of that association, has gone from the casual contemplation of a paycheck to furious reactionary firefighting.  Given the current economy, and the fact that my first manuscript sale is unlikely to make me independently wealthy (sure, I can dream, but I can buy lottery tickets and not win, too), this is probably a good thing long-term… but with the aforementioned Artist demanding so much of my energy, as well as demanding ever-higher levels of performance and observation from me as we go, it’s a full-on brain screw when it comes to the imaginary world in my head.

Acknowledging that the work situation is not going to change any time soon, the simple truth is that business will never be my Art — there’s never been any question about that, and if that’s a self-imposed limitation, I can live with it.  With that established, then, the key to reclaiming my own Artistry has to be regaining control of my own time, and the only way I can think of to do that under the pressures of work is by adopting and maintaining a strict schedule.  With regular 12-hour days sapping my energy, nights are lost except for mindless media consumption, so I have to claim the mornings as my own.  This means resisting the siren song of online gaming for overly late evenings, it means not throwing the alarm clock at the wall during the early mornings, and somehow working out how not to get wretchedly motion-sick while writing on the bus (something I’ll gladly take hints regarding, if anyone has any).

…of course, it’ll be much harder to establish these habits this holiday season, as I fully expect to engage in some bad behavior (and, by the way, have thoroughly earned the opportunity to misbehave over the last year!).  But when the New Year comes and the feces begin to impact the rotating oscillator yet again, at least I know I have a plan.