Writing vs. Art

I’ve observed something about myself. I do my best writing when I write for myself, but I do my best art when it’s for other people.

Not that I don’t want other people to read my writing…I do. Eventually. And it’s not that I don’t have readers in mind while I write. I’m always thinking, “Okay, is this going to interest anyone other than me?” and “This is going to bore people” and things like that. But ultimately I write these stories because I want to see them on paper. I suppose I’m writing the sort of book I’d like to read. Even if everyone else thinks the book stinks, I’ll still want to read it. Bit narcissistic, I guess. My point is, I’m not really doing this FOR anyone else. I want people to be interested, but I’m not going to write stories just to please them.

Now art, on the other hand, is a whole different thing with me. And when I say “my art”, let me clarify that I’m talking about the art I do that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m writing. If I’m drawing book stuff, I’m still technically in writer mode. Other than story-related pieces, I really don’t make art for myself. I’m not one to make stuff that I’d hang on the wall…unless I was creating the piece specifically TO hang on the wall. I think my wands even fall into this category. I like making them, but I’m not so much making them for me as I am making them for Someone Else.

And when I do make art for a specific purpose, or for a specific person, I work much faster. What would probably take me a week doing it for myself, I can create in a day for someone else. The whole process just becomes easier. I don’t know why that is…I’ve only recently observed THAT it is, for me. I don’t do art for its own sake. I don’t just draw because I “feel” like it. I have to have a purpose in mind.

And on the other hand, when I try to write something for someone else? The process bogs down. I hate writing essays, for instance, and how-to’s. Even if it’s a subject that interests me, it’s just never as satisfying as working on my novel. Have anyone else noticed that book and movie reviews on this blog are few and far between? I don’t enjoy writing them. Because it’s the sort of writing one does more for other people than for yourself (after all, you’ve read the book or seen the movie…you don’t have to tell yourself what you thought about it). It’s difficult, and the result is not satisfying. I have to write for its own sake; trying to squeeze an objective in there is hard.

So I have two creative outlets which I enjoy and am fairly skilled at: writing and visual art. My writing belongs to me. My art belongs to the world, I guess. I wonder if I was always like this, or if choosing to pursue writing over art caused my brain to wire itself this way. If I’d chosen to concentrate on art instead, would it be the other way around?

Has anyone else with multiple creative interests noticed something like this about themselves?

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: artwork, business of writing, the real world

Some things that have little to do with one another

I read The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau in one day, almost in a single sitting. My husband got kind of boggle-eyed when I told him that, and yeah, I guess that’s a bit quick, even for me. I mean, it usually takes me at least a whole day, maybe two, to plow through a several hundred page book. It was quite a satisfying read…I’ve seen the movie, probably a year ago now, and it was pretty faithful to the book. That sort of conciseness, common to the young adult genre in particular, is something I admire when I see it and something I need to do more. I have a tendency to write epically.

Right now I’m working on Inkheart, another book that I’ve seen the movie of. Pretty good so far.

I have a ridiculous weakness for M&Ms. In case the blog itself doesn’t give that away.

You might notice that I’ve tweaked the sidebar a little bit. That picture (and yes, that is me) is one the hubby took while we were in North Carolina. It was a nice foggy day, which made for some very neat photo opportunities. I also finally figured out how to eliminate the search thingy at the top. I never liked it there. I’ll probably put it somewhere else in the sidebar, so the blog is still easily searchable.

I’ve been thinking about the logistics of the coup Raphel is planning for the city of Aschera. Read more…

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: books, brainstorming, Reviews, Shades, worldbuilding

Slow scene

Maybe it’s because I’m on vacation. (Um, yeah, btw, we’re in North Carolina for the week with the hubby’s parents…) Hard to get any solid writing done.

Or maybe it’s because I’m writing a Saeli/Brendan conflict scene, and that’s harder to do from Saeli’s head. I dunno. It ought to be easier, because I’ve got a solid pipeline to Saeli’s internal state of mind. But for some reason, I’m having a hard time generating the necessary emotion to make this scene work. The scene needs to happen, and it needs to happen onscreen. It escalates the tension between Saeli and Brendan, so that Brendan’s later drug experimentation and subsequent explosion at Saeli makes sense. Otherwise, Brendan is going to look like he’s overreacting, and the reader isn’t going to have a clear idea why.

However, maybe I’m trying to milk it too much. Maybe it needs to be extremely short, and maybe Brendan actually holds back a lot of what he’d like to say. I was going to have this fight undermine a lot of the confidence Saeli has just gained in Raphel…but reading that just now, I’m realizing that I can’t do that. I mean, we’ve just had a big reveal in the story. I’ve turned Saeli’s world upside down, and she needs to ride that for a while. Her thoughts need to marinate before I dump the next big thing on her.

And to some extent, I want Brendan’s blow-up at the graduation party to shock Saeli. She needs to know he’s upset, but I don’t think she or the reader needs to know just how much the boyfriend thing has been eating at him until it all comes out. Brendan’s pain is a major consequence of her joining forces with Raphel, and as such, it needs to hit her at the appropriate time.

So this little fight needs to be short and bitter, but not too intense. What needs to be revealed at this point?

-Brendan thinks Saeli has a boyfriend. Because:

-Brendan ran into Cara while looking for Saeli. Cara, concerned because Saeli hasn’t returned to campus yet, and feeling guilty about lying to Brendan in the first place, tells him the truth and sends him after her. This, perhaps, will also create a little tension between Cara and Saeli. Saeli’s going to have to keep lying to keep Raphel a secret, and this will have the effect of isolating her from her Mantle friends.

-Brendan was coming to tell Saeli that he’s earned the gold and white, and that they’ll be Anjahel together. Finding out that she tricked him in order to sneak off campus to meet a boyfriend has completely ruined this much anticipated moment for him. Thus, he is not happy.

However, the crux of his anger is not specifically that Saeli has a boyfriend. Rather, he thinks she had a boyfriend when they talked in the infirmary, and he thinks she deliberately kept it from him. He also assumes that’s why she tricked him in order to sneak off campus. Brendan is feeling like he’s being played by the girl he likes, and that really hurts. I think that’s the reveal I need to save for the graduation party. Let Saeli assume Brendan is mainly mad about the sneaking out, and then let the truth come out later, at the worst possible moment.

I think I know where this scene needs to go now. Note to self…if a scene is going slowly, maybe there’s something functionally wrong with it, and I need to step back and analyze what I’m doing.

Like this post?

Like!

1 likes

piglet

Tags: Brendan, Cara, Saeli, Shades, writer's block

Fate-2.0

I decided to listen to my Dragon Singer soundtrack today in the car, which of course got me thinking about it. I did a little brainstorming with the hubby during lunch. Yeah, my brain is scattery like that. Am in the process of making a few revisions.

Read more…

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: Dragon Singer, ideas, Miriam, Rane, spindlewyrd, worldbuilding

Tea and seduction

So I’ve reached the point (again) where Raphel has convinced Saeli to help him overthrow the gods. I had to do it a little differently (again), because her internal struggles are a little different. On the first draft of the story, Saeli was very naive, so Raphel didn’t have to try all that hard to bring her in. In the second draft, she got a lot more shrewd, so Raphel actually had to get a little more scary. This time around, I’ve backed Raphel’s mean streak off a bit, although I think he’s still much harsher than the original version of him. Interestingly, being directly in Saeli’s head has allowed me to play Raphel’s mystery up more. I’m also playing up his seductive nature, and on this draft I’m trying to hold off Saeli feeling outright betrayed by him until the very end, when he goes after Aschamon. That way all the various small betrayals will pile on top of her at once, and she’ll realize just how badly he’s played her.

Read more…

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

Shades continues

It will be so gratifying when I don’t have to say that anymore. Five years is a long time for a project, you know?

I think, I think, that the scene I’m currently working on will be one of the last to involve significant changes to the storyline itself. It’s the scene where Saeli meets Raphel in the Sari Cafe…only now she’s already been given her Mantle, she has to sneak off campus in order to meet him at all, she and Cara had to deceive Brendan in order to pull off the escape, and she’s got a two hour time limit to get back (before the school gates close for the night). Thus, the whole dialogue will have to unfold in a different order to accommodate the changes. Plus I’m bringing over a shortened version of the dedication discussion, since the first thing out of Saeli’s mouth is going to be something along the lines of “Uh, they kind of made me a Mantle”…which isn’t going to make Raphel happy.

Read more…

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: Brendan, Cara, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

Raphel’s cabal needs a name

I mean, Geris’ cabal has a name: the Blackports. They hail out of Lanschport, in the southeast…which has a certain reputation even among Cowls. All people of Verre have some particular superstitions about the ocean, and avoid it if possible; easy to do on their world. Lanschport has the notoriety of being the only major city built seaside, which contributes to its unsavory reputation. This, by the way, is information that doesn’t have anything to do with the story of Raphel and Saeli, so it will probably never get mentioned.

Geris takes particular delight in being from Lanschport, but then, he’s a weird, perverse kind of guy.

What would Raphel call his cabal? To the larger world, the name would be mostly irrelevant. Raphel is so famous that his cabal is simply going to be known by most people as “Raphel’s cabal”…they aren’t going to care what he himself calls it. But still, they must call themselves something…every group needs an identity.

I’m inclined toward something like “New Iadnah”, or something like that. The Cowls in Raphel’s cabal, or at least a good number of them, are survivors of the Siege of Iadnah. Raphel met Nasira in Iadnah during the siege, an event which definitely changed his life. It’s an identifying point with them…gives them particular reason to want to assassinate high-ranking Mantles. Only New Iadnah sounds a little presumptuous to me. But I dunno, maybe Raphel would name his group something presumptous. Maybe he did it when he took it over from Nasira when he was 18.

I’ll just have to think about it some more.

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: ideas, Raphel, Shades

Fortuitous coincidence

Go me, I even spelled fortuitous right on my first try.

So a month or two ago, there was this author that had been recommended to me, and I kept telling myself I should check her out. Then, at the Cassandra Claire and Holly Black event in Vero, that same author was recommended yet again, by those two no less. I said to myself, “I really do need to look into that.”

Then, of course, I completely forgot the author’s name. Read more…

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: authors, books, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

Brendan surprised me again

Gotta give the guy some credit. He seems like such a simple character: classic Boy-Next-Door, the one who’s perfect for the heroine but she just doesn’t see it. (In Saeli’s defense, I’m not sure Brendan’s actually “better” for her, in terms of compatibility. I do think they could have made it work, and work well, if she’d been willing to give him that chance.) But there’s a lot going on with him on the inside. He’s actually a bit darker than most boy-next-doors; he has some anger management and depression problems, though they’re buried pretty deep. Throughout this story he’s going to be dealing with feelings he’s never had to face before, and it’s going to dredge some of that up. (Seriously. Making Brendan angry is like pissing off a volcano. Bad idea. Unless you’re Raphel. He seems to enjoy watching people blow up emotionally.)

Read more…

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: Brendan, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades

Being in Saeli’s head

…is an experience I’m enjoying. I think part of the reason she’s such a hard nut to crack is because of how much she holds in. First person lets all that come out, while preserving her facade. Part of it is her own personality: she’s a private and introverted soul by nature, and opens up to people only slowly. But part of it stems from her effort to be good enough to wear the Mantle. White Mantle society frowns on open displays of emotion; they are quiet, reserved people (on the outside, anyway). Saeli feels things very passionately, but over the years she’s learned to dampen that fire, and only show what she thinks people want to see. Her face still gives her away if her emotions run too high, though, and she hates that about herself.

Saeli has learned to hold back her emotions to the point where she’s actually made herself a little bit numb on the inside. But once she does accept that she does feel something, it burns through her. I’m about four scenes back into the story now, and she’s spent two of those either watching Raphel or actually interacting with him. She’s definitely physically attracted to him, but interestingly enough, it hasn’t crossed her mind yet. It’s that pseudo-numbness. How she feels is irrelevant to her…how she conducts herself is everything. She’ll analyze her feelings later, in private, probably in great detail. And once she does realize what those physical reactions mean…oh, she’ll fall. Hard.

She’s also something of a pessimist, or at least a cynic, in her head. She always braces for the worst, or she looks at situations and starts thinking of how it could have been worse. She’s always examining herself, asking why she feels the way she does, criticizing herself when what she sees doesn’t line up with what she thinks should be there. She thinks through everything. A lot of that is tied up in years of thinking she’s not good enough…she won’t shake that easily. Raphel is going to nail her with that, especially once she starts dealing with her fears of not being good enough for him.

Saeli also thinks she’s a terrible liar, when in reality she’s a fairly good one. It’s just that she hates lying, and is thus sure it’s written all over her…but she’s so used to holding back that keeping secrets is not that much of a step for her. Brendan is the truly terrible liar. Cara’s average. Raphel makes an art of it.

She’s got some snark in her, sometimes, but it’s not a big part of her personality.

Anywho, that’s where I am with her so far.

Like this post?

Like!

0 likes

Tags: revisions, Saeli, Shades