Well.

The problem is, my productivity has been extremely spread out. I’ve gotten a little further on Promises, Like Tears. I’ve written the script for about half an episode of Grimms, and mapped out all the episodes in each season…so I have a very clear picture of where everything is going. I’ve written a better version of my query letter, and am set to revise it yet again. I discovered the most awesome epic fantasy writing music on the planet. I made some awesome Halloween costumes. Aaaaaand, I’m revising Hands, Like Secrets. Again.

I just really don’t seem to have the discipline to keep plugging away on one single project at a time. I can do it for a couple of weeks, but then it’s like I HAVE to work on something else for a little while. My system of grouping projects together (one series, one novel, one season of Grimms, specific visual projects) has been useful in keeping myself within limits, as far as what gets worked on. I really can’t decide if my multiple project mindset is something I ought to try and train myself out of, or something to harness. I mean, once I break into the business I will have to be able to work within a schedule. I won’t be able to work on whatever the hell I want when I want, you know? So maybe I need to get myself used to that now.

So, in order. I’ve kind of hit a wall in Promises, one of those “just wanna get this stupid scene DONE and move on” walls that you simply have to kind of plod through. I felt like I was losing my grip on the characters and their motivations, like everything they were doing was coming from me instead of them. Being a character-driven writer, I hate that feeling. When I get that way I just have to take a step back. That was around Halloween, too, so I was doing costumes, which always eat a lot of my time.

Also, I got a copy of Scrivener for my birthday this year, and part of what’s been eating my time in the last couple of months has been moving all my various ideas and works-in-progress over to that format. Scrivener is a writing program which basically allows you to store all your documents, photos, bits of research, anything related to your story in one place, and lets you organize it. It’s really a great tool if you, like me, find yourself creating massive folders full of story-related stuff for each novel, and get tired of having to have multiple programs open all the time just to access it all. Initially I wasn’t going bother moving Shades, since Hands, Like Secrets was done and Promises well started. But after realizing that I could put ALL of my Shades stories in one project file, including the sequel and prequel, I decided it made sense to dump it all into Scrivener. Moving all my various projects has really helped me take stock of where I am in each project, and what still needs to be done. It was this move, actually, that got me working on Grimms again.

I ended up going through the whole story and working out arcs for each character, especially when they would peak or bottom out. What I didn’t want to happen was having all eight Grimms hitting rock bottom at the same time, because then I’d have a bunch of emotionally charged episodes followed by episodes where nothing significant happened. Gave each episode a name and a general plan of action as well.

The other major thing I did was make one of the Grimms gay. When I was creating the characters initially, I set out to make the cast as racially diverse as possible (without it seeming contrived). The girls outnumber the guys, but since guys tend to be over-represented in visual fiction, I think it will actually end up feeling even. But my relationship pairings were…too perfect. Hansel/Gretel, Red/Stiltz, Cutter/Cinder, Rapunzel/Oros (a fae), and Rora was going to fall for Alan Hunter in the end. But the whole point of having a diverse cast is so that, hopefully, everyone that reads the graphic novel will have at least one character they can really relate to. One character that “represents” them. This is the strength of an ensemble. So I got to thinking, who will my LGBT readers relate to? I felt like that perspective deserved representation as much as any other.

I chose Rora, initially because she was the only “unattached” Grimm, and changing her orientation would least affect my already established story arcs. But as I began to approach her character with this new nuance in mind, something unexpected happened. She almost immediately fell for Katie, the human girl who gets placed with Mother Goose in Season 3, and it was perfect. It introduces the problem of a Grimm falling for a human, which nicely contrasts Rapunzel’s struggle (Grimm falling for a Fae). It explaines a lot about Katie’s character. It links the Grimms with Smile, the second Fae-rescue team that Katie eventually helps start. I get to address the issue of homosexuality from the perspective of someone who’s grown up in an environment entirely free from the usual associated stigma (Arcadia), and someone who is all too familiar with the stigma.

And then, just this month, I really started to reassess where I am with Hands, and my agent-hunting. Because aside from that one nibble right at the beginning of the process, I’ve only gotten form rejections and silence. I tried revising my query letter, but that hasn’t seemed to help. Therefore, I have to think that it’s the story itself, specifically the beginning (as that’s what most agents request), that’s the problem. I have actually suspected (and tried to deny) that Hands didn’t start in quite the right place, that the scene in the High Priestess’ office is too tame to kick off the story. I just couldn’t figure out how to include all the necessary backstory otherwise. But I started reading a book called Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers by Les Edgerton…and realized that a lot of that backstory is not really necessary. Interesting, perhaps, but not necessary.

What I essentially decided to do was start the book in Chapter 2. I mean, compare the strengths of the opening lines:

Chapter 1: “I’d been summoned to the High Priestess’ office that night.” Bleh.

Chapter 2: “I sank back against the wall, gripping my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.”

Yeah, the second one is a whole lot more intriguing. And that immediately segues into the battle between Raphel and the High Priestess, which makes for an awesome first chapter. I was able to add back in enough information that (I hope) the reader will be able to figure out what’s going on. (Though I will say, if you are the kind of person who likes to have all new information, definitions, words, and explanations laid out for you up front, you probably aren’t going to enjoy this book.)

And, in rewriting that beginning, I really started to straighten out Saeli’s GMC as it progresses through the story. Although the last major rewrite I did straightened out most of the major continuity errors, there was still some disconnect between various scenes, specifically in the area of how Saeli is reacting to what’s going on. The various issues were coming and going, one after another, instead of piling up to the climax. Also, Saeli’s a bit tougher and sharper this time around, and there’s a very noticeable disconnect between what she’s thinking and how she’s acting at any given moment. I think this has everything to do with where the story starts now. She’s all over the place, emotionally, in her head…but to anyone else, she probably comes across as calm, quiet, and even a little bit cold. She’s actually pretty downright harsh to Raphel at first, and overall I think she’s a better match for him this time around. I’ve found myself writing him a little bit softer and more seductive in response, and I think he actually likes her a little bit more than he did before. It means that his cruelty is all the more jarring when it surfaces, which is appropriate.

I think this will also help me push through Promises, as I have a much clearly picture of where Saeli has been.

I’ve also discovered what seems like a hundred little tiny plot holes, which is both irritating and alarming (I’ve sent this to agents? Good gods, what was I thinking??). Most are continuity gaps, emotionally getting a character from here to there. Some are logistical, like why on earth did I have Saeli and Raphel walk up an entire flight of tower stairs in the city Temple when time is of the essence and THEY CAN TELEPORT?

And the latest one: After Raphel spirits Saeli away and returns her, the High Priestess decides that it’s not safe for Saeli to leave campus until she is dedicated to Scisaxar. Saeli gets special permission to leave campus for a few hours to go to a graduation party, at Cara’s request. She walks alone to a cabstand and takes a cab. On the way, she is intercepted by Raphel.

See the problem yet?

Saeli would never have been permitted to walk out of Aschamon alone. See, the reader knows that Saeli has already thwarted this rule once, and that she is not in any physical danger from Raphel. But the High Priestess does not know that. There’s simply no way she would allow Saeli to travel to this party by herself: she would arrange for Saeli to be teleported straight there, or at the very least, assign someone to escort her.

Cara is a bit more blaze about the whole danger aspect. She’s helped Saeli sneak out once…but that was only to Main Street, and she was with her roommate the whole time. Letting Saeli travel by herself, across town, at sunset? No, I don’t buy it. Again, as far as Cara knows, there is a murderous Cowl out there just waiting to get his hands on Saeli again.

But the thing is, Saeli has to be alone for this scene to work. She has to disappear with Raphel for an hour, and then has to appear at the party with no one the wiser. (Which means Raphel can’t neutralize Saeli’s escort, or abduct her for an hour when teleportation is supposed to be near instantaneous.) Raphel also cannot go anywhere near the party, because any Anjahel there will sense him. Saeli has to start learning rashas qi onscreen, as it were, and it must happen before all the party excitement (because she won’t be in any emotional condition to do it after she’s been “abducted”). This does not leave me many options.

My best one:

#1: Cara acts as Saeli’s escort. Raphel, in the guise of “Aiden”, whom Cara has met, convinces her to let him have an hour alone with Saeli before he takes her to the party himself. Cara would probably agree to this.

Downsides: Cara has been to Valene’s house (where the party is), so there’s no good reason for her to NOT teleport her and Saeli straight there. Especially since Cara wants to give Saeli the full advantage of her limited freedom, and figures Saeli won’t want to waste time in travel. Granted, they would have to exit the school in order to teleport, but they’d only have to be outside the gates. Raphel cannot intercept them there for obvious reasons.

Possible solutions: Saeli convinces Cara to get a quick bite to eat in town before heading for the party. Maybe, if Cara can be convinced that isn’t bending the HP’s rules too much. Or, Saeli travels with a large group of girls (probably Cara’s friends) into town ahead of time to, I dunno, eat or accessorize or whatever. A group would seem safer. Problematic, in that Raphel isn’t going to want to be seen by a whole bunch of Aschamon students and risk being pegged for what he is: a Cowl. Also, it means lots of people are going to know that Saeli disappeared with a guy, which means the word is much more likely to get back to the Priestess. The Priestess would recognize Raphel from his description. Eh…sounds like I’m going with option #1. It’s the least complicated.

Least complicated being an extremely relative term. Just thinking of all the little scenes I’ll have to alter to make this change is making my head hurt. But it needs to be done.

After all that, I’ll have to do another line edit, because somehow even though I dropped an entire chapter, my word count went UP. Then I will write yet another query letter, which I think I have a better idea of how to approach that now. If all goes well, by the first of the year, I will be querying again.

Oh! Epic fantasy writing music. Discovered a group called Two Steps From Hell (via Brandon Sanderson’s Facebook, of all places), and immediately had to get both of their commercially available albums. Apparently they mostly make movie trailer music (in fact, I recognized two of their songs in the latest Twilight trailer). Which means most of what they’ve done is only available if you, you know, have lots of money and make movies. But, man. This is what I’m talking about:

Two Steps From Hell - Archangel

Anyway, here’s to getting an agent in 2012.

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And it was so very, very easy to fix. Gah.

Anyway, that’s why things have been down for the last…week? Two weeks? Time tends to get away from me…

Back with your irregularly scheduled posts soon!

Edited to add: You may notice that some features, like my embedded music, are not working properly. Updating always breaks a few plugins (just usually not so thoroughly). I apologize. It will take me some time to get everything all updated and running again.

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Anonymous

I’ve come up with the idea of organizing every project, including the artistic ones unconnected with my writing and my wands, into what I’ll call “cycles”. Every cycle includes at least one series novel (like Shades or Briar Rose), one stand-alone novel, various shorter writing projects, bits of Amphitere’s Vision, and art projects. It gives me options, but confines those options enough so that I actually make progress on things.

What’s also helped is finally sitting down and deciding exactly what still needs to be done for Amphiptere’s Vision, which was kind of a huge, sprawling mess. The project folder is a jumbled mess of Excel spreadsheets, Notepad notes, and drawings of characters, dragons, and maps in various stages of completion. I asked myself: “If I was going to hand a folder to, oh say a game producer, what all would I need to include so that they would understand the vision of the game? What might they want to see?” and made a list. So now I have, like, actual goals to work towards.

Each “cycle” is supposed to take 1-2 years to complete, though I think that will vary. The way I broke things down, I already have 12 cycles planned. *cough* Yeah, I have a lot of projects. Although the last two or three are just Tindaari (I know I’ll be filling those up). I ran some numbers, and calculated that if I wrote 400 words a day, I could write a 96,000 word novel in a year’s time. Double that to 800 words a day, and I could write two novels in a year’s time. That’s not bad. 400 words doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but I’ve been surprised how often it’s difficult to manage even that much in a day. (Ever try writing with Inspector Gadget, Rugrats, or Pixar playing in the background? Meh.) That will get better after school starts, I think, and I have some hours to myself.

One of my biggest problems in productivity is guilt. Much of the time I feel like I’m not making enough progress. Of if I am making progress, I feel like it’s coming at the expense of doing the laundry, or making sure my son isn’t just sitting around all day watching TV. I know guilt motivates some people, but it paralyzes me. I get even more disinclined to work, and thus feel more guilt, and so on. The 400 words a day is really helping with that, because it’s such an easy goal to meet and yet I know it will still get me somewhere. And when I write more I can pat myself on the back even more.

So that’s where I am, and why I haven’t been updating much.

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Anonymous

However, last week I did take myself to the movie Prom, on the justification that it was a teenager movie and I write stories for teenagers. I ought to keep myself familiar with how they dress and talk and act around each other if my books are going to contain any amount of realism. And…sometimes I like a simple young toothy love story. And the guy who plays Jesse is kinda cute *cough*…

Anyway, it was pretty much what I expected. Nothing deep or riveting or complicated. But it did affirm why the young adult genre appeals to me as a whole, and also reminded me that it’s been a while since I was a teenager.

I like the immediacy. People tend to mock teenaged angst, how everything that’s happening is so dreadfully important and a big deal all the time. How ups are like mountaintops and downs are like the end of the world. It’s true that young people lack a certain amount of perspective that comes with age and living life. But you know…sometimes I think adults could use more of that immediacy and significance. Young people care, immensely and deeply, and that kind of passion can do amazing things in the world, if channeled. We, as adults, need to remember how it feels to care, and to love, and to ache…to not let those things slip away with the years.

I like the sort of on-the-cusp, anything-is-possible vibe that seems to permeate stories that involve teenagers. It’s both exciting and scary to be making momentous decisions that will affect the rest of one’s life, and it makes those characters stand out in a way that wise, mature, rational adult characters sometimes don’t.

But watching that movie, I noticed something. Many of the problems between characters could have been easily and quickly solved, if the characters would only talk about what was bothering them. It amazed me how many times I was sitting there in the theater thinking, “Just say it! Why can’t you just speak up??” I found myself sometimes getting frustrated with how easily they would sometimes just give up and go along with the crowd, or follow orders, or do nothing.

But see, I’m an adult. Been there, done that, you know? I’ve learned from experience that getting things out in the open is usually worth any possible repercussions. I’ve learned to express myself, and I’ve learned that voicing my needs and feelings is far better in the long run than hiding them. I’ve had a few years to hone what I’d say, and how I’d say it, and I’m no longer so insecure about what people will think of me if I speak up. It takes some deliberate effort on my part to put myself in a teenaged mindset. Thinking like that not an automatic thing for me.

In other words, I don’t remember what it’s like to be a teenager quite as well as I think I do. And I’d do well to keep that in mind.

In other news, I’ve started another blog. I was very adamant that this blog was going to be for writing, and only for writing, and that I wasn’t going to get into religion or politics here unless it directly related to my writing. But more and more I’ve found myself needing a place to vent on certain issues…because otherwise they just bother me and bother me and I don’t get anything done for like a week. If you really want to know where I stand on such topics, you can head over here and poke around. There’s not much there yet, but it’ll probably get added to pretty fast. I will warn you, sometimes I may not be very nice and I’ll probably be doing a lot of picking on fundamentalist Christianity in particular. Not because I have a problem with the Christian faith…actually, I like it very much, which is why I’d like to see its blind spots and idiocies and dark sides exposed and dealt with. But, if that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable, then you should probably leave exilemusings alone.

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Anonymous(9)

My car died. Like, permanently. Poor old Pontiac. The only thing worse than driving an overheating car across Melbourne was then having nightmares about driving said overheating car across Melbourne that night. Which, I now know, was not a wise thing to do…but alas. Thankfully, I have the most wonderful dad in the world, who funded the Hyundai Sonata I’m driving now.

We now have a cat. The hubby heard him crying outside one night after those two huge April storms we had. I, of course, had headphones on and didn’t have a clue. So we’re sitting there working on our computers, when the hubby suddenly gets up and walks out the front door with no explanation. He then calls my phone and asks if we have anything we could feed to a cat. I cut up some hot dogs and take them outside, where I find him with a very skittish orange kitty in the downstairs breezeway. We debated what to do with the cat, as it was raining and we didn’t want to just leave him outside. As it was around 11 in the evening, our options were limited. We ended up bringing the cat up to the apartment for the night and made plans to call animal control in the morning.

We got some basic supplies and discovered that the kitty was housebroken (litter trained and everything). Also, this cat really, really liked my husband. I mean, he couldn’t even leave the room without the cat trying to follow and put its paws up on his ankles. I stayed home with the cat the next day until animal control came, and that part was absolutely horrible. My son was home on spring break, which made it even worse (how do you explain to a five-year-old why someone is taking kitty to the pound, when every single child’s movie that features a pound portrays it as a BAD PLACE??)

Well, we debated, and debated, and finally decided that we couldn’t bear the thought of this cat getting possibly euthanized if no one claimed him. After a week, we went back to the animal shelter and officially adopted him. His name is now Kansuke, and he is settling in very nicely (after he got rid of the cold he caught at the shelter).

I have been writing, despite all this; working on Promises, Like Tears and This Chosen Fate kind of in tandem. When I hit a block in one story, I switch to the other. By the time I hit a hard place in the other, I’m ready to continue the first one. I’ve also spent quite a bit of time on Amphiptere’s Vision, tweaking the skillsets. “Sandboxing” them, I call it; where instead of coming up with a straightforward list of abilities, I create a set of “tools”, skills that can be combined to create the individual abilities. It gives the player the opportunity to create their own “style” of fighting, hunting, building, etc. It also forces the player to think about what the various tools do, and to anticipate what might happen if one tool is combined with another. I want the player to “know” his skillsets nearly as well as the character does, and to be creative in how he employs them. Breaks the bash-bash-bash-loot monotony of grinding that most MMO’s seem to have.

I’ve heard back on a few submissions, mostly the standard not-right-for-us-at-this-time letters. The few more personal notes I’ve gotten have been encouraging, however (as is the fact that I’ve even gotten personal notes at this stage in the game). I’ve sent out a few more and hope to hear back in the next few weeks. The agent hunt continues.

That’s about it on the real life front. More to come later.

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I’ve been productive, which I suppose is part of the updating problem. Have plotted out the Waters story, and decided to give it an actual title: This Chosen Fate. Have also written nearly a full chapter of Promises, Like Tears. I’m getting a much better handle on Naeth’s character this time around. He’s actually supposed to be sort of annoying and not really all that likable when you first meet him, which will make his later improvements stand out all the more. I’ve been debating theology with friends, which easily turns into a time-sucker with me.

Also, one of the blogs I follow regularly, Slacktivist, moved to a new internet home last week, which sparked a…ruckus. Very quick sum-up: Within the community of commenters and lurkers that follow Slacktivist, many people had objections to the content of the new home site, Patheos, and felt that they could not in good conscience support such a site. The community seemed ready to split over the move. This is the type of situation that moves at internet speed and can only be kept up with if one is willing to follow 1000+ comments or so across the space of about 5 separate threads on two different websites. However, the community seems to have settled on a compromise: Fred will stay at Patheos to be a sort of light in the darkness, per se, but he’s handed the old space over to a few of the regulars from the community as a safe space for those who don’t want to or cannot bear to deal with the vile stuff on Patheos. Which, I have to say, is pretty awesome of him. But…following all the drama has taken up a lot of time this week.

Have also been cleaning the apartment, which is of course a never-ending job.

However, the truth is…I’m not sure where to take this blog. I definitely want it to remain about the writing, but really what it’s become is a sort of “update on me and my writing” space. Which is great (if a bit narcissistic) for me…but how interesting is that for other people? I’d like to give this place more of a direction, so people can come here and know more or less the sort of topics to expect.

I have two sort of hazy ideas. One, have the main theme be “the creative process”. The process of getting ideas. Turning those ideas into stories (or art, or…well, those are my two areas). Brainstorming. Worldbuilding. I could get even more specific, like: The Creative Process for Fantasy Writers. Or something. This could also incorporate the “real life meets writing” and “how such-and-such impacted me as a writer” posts that I do every so often.

The other idea would be to focus on the more nuts and bolts aspects of writing, like GMC and problematic plots and such. And how certain books and movies either succeed or fail based on these things. That’s kind of what Writing Excuses is, which makes it really interesting to me…but it’d essentially make this into a how-to blog. Dunno if I like that.

Anyway, I’ll be giving this more thought over the next few days. Just wanted to check in and say, no, I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet.

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Anonymous(2)

I’ve been making an Excel list of agents to query. Today I will be sending out a query to the agent I met at the writer’s conference, and then picking out 10 or so others to send a first round of emails out to. Man, talk about a complicated process. Every agent wants something different. Some want just a letter. Some want a letter and a writing sample. Some want all that and a synopsis of the story.

Of the ones who want a sample, some want a chapter. Some want 3 chapters. Some want 5 pages. Some want 10 pages. At least one wants 50 pages (!). That means, for each one of these, I have to find a break somewhere in that neighborhood. Some want said pages attached. Most want the sample in the email body and will delete anything with attachments.

Of the ones who want a synopsis, most want a page or two. Some want 5 pages. One wants 3-5 paragraphs. *eyeroll* How many bloody synposises (synposi?) do I have to write?

Some want you to query just one agent at the agency. Some say that a query to one is a query to all. Some will let you submit to another agent at the agency if the first rejects you. Some stipulate that a rejection from one is a rejection from all. Most want an email. Some have a weird online form you have to use instead. Some respond to everyone. Most warn that prolonged silence is a no. Response time is anywhere between 1 week and 6 months.

Are you beginning to see the need for a spreadsheet to keep all this straight?? Now I figure if I can navigate all this excitement, I’ll be a step ahead of most people who go through this process.

I’m finally reading Towers of Midnight. I have to say, sometimes the library has good timing. I knew I had requested the book sometime back, and I was terrified it was going to come in during those couple of weeks before the conference. You know, when I was busy copyediting and preparing and most definitely not having time to start an 843 page beast. (That’s, er, overlooking the fact that I did read Fallen by Lauren Kate, and the final Vampire Academy book Last Sacrifice during that time. Um, yeah.)

I’ve also been reading the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson. Those are fun, though the super-short chapters get annoying pretty fast. I mean, when every single chapter is a page or two long? It starts to feel like this breathless, chronological montage of…stuff happening. Or like watching a fan blade turn round and round. It becomes a gimmick for making the book seem fast paced, but here’s the thing. These books don’t need it. They’re face-paced enough. Choppy chapter breaks are unnecessary, especially when they don’t really…divide…anything.

And here it comes, the deep thought for the day. Maximum Ride, and yesterday’s viewing of Toy Story 3, have gotten me thinking about family. As is, what makes a family? Are unconventional families any less deserving of the title?

Take a child’s room. Toy stores push for continuity…sets of toys that all go together. Any picture of a child’s room will show matching bedspread, wallpaper, curtains, and toys. One theme. Everything belongs together. Nothing looks out of place or different. However, the reality is that children collect a variety of disparate toys over time, and when they’re playing, they don’t care that Mr. Potato Head and Transformers have nothing to do with each other. My son’s kitties, matchbox cars, fisher-price nativity figures, and dragons all have adventures together. In Toy Story, it’s a cowboy figure, a space figure, a dinosaur, a spring dog, some potatos, a piggy bank, and little army men.

I’d extend that analogy to families. It’s not blood that bonds people together; it’s a shared purpose and a commitment to one another. Maximum Ride’s flock of bird-kids are a family. The toys of Andy’s room are a family. They aren’t related, and couldn’t be more different from each other. I would compare the people who say that only traditional, nuclear families can succeed are like those toy store advertisements. They ignore the real world in favor of some idyllic vision of what a family is “supposed” to look like: one mommy, one daddy, 2.5 children, and maybe a dog. But I don’t see anything superior or ordained about this arrangement. I don’t even think this is the “best” arrangement. There is no “best” arrangement; to make it all about better and best is to miss the point of the whole institute. We live in a messy world.

In the real world, dinosaurs can play with Barbies, and the world doesn’t come to a screeching halt. Why? Because in that space, they share a purpose: to provide entertainment for a child. (Obviously inanimate objects can’t be committed to one another, but perhaps you could postulate that this shared commitment is provided by the child who is playing). In the same way, I don’t see any evidence that children raised by a gay couple will be scarred for life just because the arrangement is “different”. As long as they are a family: ie. shared purpose, commitment to one another, then that’s all that matters.

I honestly don’t understand people who claim the breakdown of the traditional family is the cause of all societal ills. No. The problem is that people have forgotten what a family is, and people think they can magically fix that problem with a set of hard and fast rules. One man-one woman only, thank you, gays and “deviants” need not apply. Family dinners. Home church. Home school. But these rules do not a family create, and families that follow these rules do not necessarily thrive better than families that do things differently. I’m not saying the rules are bad…for the most part, they’re good ideas. But they cannot be a replacement for the essential elements that separate a family from a group of people who happen to live together or be related by blood.

The gender of the parents is irrelevant. The sexual orientation of the parents is irrelevant. The number of parents is irrelevant. The number of children is irrelevant. The presence or absence of unrelated persons is irrelevant. Is a normal child’s room inferior to a toy store ad because it’s full of mismatching stuff? Of course not. A room full of toys can be a family. A band of winged kids led by a 14-year-old can be a family. A band of orphans can be a family. The crew of a flying ship on a post-apocalyptic world where robots have taken over can be a family. A mastodon, a saber-tooth tiger, a sloth, and a human baby can be a family. Four mutant turtles and a mutant rat can be a family. Two sisters and a space alien can be a family. None of these arrangements are inferior to the traditional man-woman-children by vice of being different. I don’t think anyone has the right to point and say, “That’s not a real family” or “Those people would be so much better off in a traditional family”.

As an aside, I just got visited by some very nice Mormons. I may blog about that later.

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I’m also working on a synopsis, which is more blarg…but not as bad as it could be, since I had the foresight to sum up all the important events of Hands on index cards in preparation for editing. I think I’ll have everything ready for the conference.

Speaking of: Hey, the Space Coast Writers Guild conference is coming up! Jan. 28th and 29th (which is a Friday and a Saturday). It’s a great conference, and not too pricey, as far as writing conferences go. Click here for details and a registration form. You can also walk in and register the day of.

I did the conference booklet again this year (yeah…last weekend’s mad project), and I hope it looks as good printed as it does on a computer screen. The registration booklet I did was a little graphics-busy, IMO.

So…one might ask why I’m blogging when I probably should be copyediting or synopsising or somesuch. Well, I’m feeling a bit burnt out and I figured writing something is at least more productive than reading pages upon pages of Slacktivist comments. Not that those aren’t interesting, and un-productive…anyway.

I ran across an interesting word the other day (through, ironically enough, said Slacktivist comment pages).

Kayfabe.

It describes both the act put on by performers and the willing suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience to participate in said act. It is both the ruse and the willingness to pretend to believe the ruse. It is the fourth wall. Apparently the most common use of the word occurs in professional wrestling, which is of course a highly elaborate act, for the most part. There is controversy on the origin of the word: some say it is pig latin for “be fake”, others say it originated as a carny term, a sort of code word they would use among themselves as a signal to “get in character, someone’s watching”.

However, this is a great word for any creative person to know. Think about it. Any movie, TV show, novel, play, painting…hell, just about any work of fiction could not succeed without kayfabe. No one who sits down to watch a movie or read a fantasy novel is under any illusion that anything depicted therein is actually real, in the sense that the chair they are sitting in is real. It’s fake. It’s an act. But the act, the kayfabe, is what allows the truths to be communicated. The creator knows it, and the audience (you hope) knows it’s not real. But the audience is willing to pretend, for a little while, and act as though they believe it’s real…because that is the only way it can be understood and enjoyed. You have to play along to get it. Anyone who sits around saying, “Bah, that’s not real!” cannot appreciate a work of fiction. They are missing the point.

But I think kayfabe is bigger than that. We all have roles that we play in society: amongst our friends, our family, strangers, authorities. Most public events have an understood kayfabe that people are expected to conform to…and when someone doesn’t, either intentionally or through ignorance, people notice. You clap to show approval at football games, and disapproval at bullfighting matches. You snap at poetry readings. You don’t dance during church services, unless you’re at a Pentecostal church, where it’s expected. You don’t talk during movies. You stand in line and wait your turn with a merchant, if you live in the US; otherwise, you have to be a little pushy. You don’t haggle the price of an item, unless you’re expected to. You don’t blow foghorns at ceremonies, unless it’s a graduation. You only crowd-surf at concerts. You stay off stage unless you are performing, presenting, or are invited by someone onstage. Kayfabe. Don’t break character. Don’t reveal the act for the ruse everyone knows it is.

Civil society depends on people being willing to believe that roles are real, even though in reality we know that people are more complex than just “parent”, “profession”, “spouse”, “jokester”, “crazy drunk person who sits at the corner of the bar every Friday night”, etc. Mixing roles is frowned upon. When you banter with the policeman who pulls you over the same way you would with your spouse, everyone gets a little uncomfortable. When someone cracks a joke or dances in the aisle during a solemn ceremony, it annoys people. Even something as simple as giving an honest answer to the scripted query “How are you today?” can be jarring.

As a writer, it is imperative that I understand kayfabe. My craft depends upon it. Ironically, I think to understand kayfabe well enough to use it in creating fiction, one must have a very clear understanding of the difference between fantasy and reality. Ironic, because kayfabe is all about non-reality. If you say a dragon destroyed Lord Orkenstyl’s castle and he wants revenge, people may take your word for it to find out what happens. If you say a dragon destroyed your car last week and that’s why you didn’t make it to work….eh, not so much. To write convincingly about dragons, your audience needs to know that you ultimately understand that dragons are not, in fact, real. But simultaneously, one has to believe in dragons so deeply that writing about them as if they were real becomes possible. I, myself as a writer, have to participate in the exact same kayfabe I’m creating for my readers. I have to fake it well enough that I myself, on some level, believe it…otherwise, it’s just not convincing.

However, the pitfall to this is that there will always be someone, somewhere, who mistakes kayfabe for reality. While everyone else is wearing plastic fangs and speaking in bad accents, someone is putting garlic on their windowsill and sharpening stakes. I would wonder if creators are less at risk for this, because, hey, they KNOW it’s fake. They created it! But at that same time, my experience is that creators are actually MORE at risk for mistaking kayfabe for reality. For example, I am personally convinced that Heath Ledger’s death was partially due to his role as the Joker finally getting to him. An actor must become the character they are playing…but they must never, you know, become that character.  A person who talks about Voldemort as if he was a real person is one thing, and mostly harmless. If pressed, they will still admit that Voldemort is made-up. A person who thinks he IS Voldemort, and proceeds to act as such…well, now it’s not a game anymore. And no one quite knows how to react to that. Everyone feels mildly betrayed, in fact…after all, doesn’t that idiot know that this was all supposed to be pretend? Ironically, the worst way to break kayfabe is not by refusing to play the game, but by believing the game is real.

Interestingly, I think the more a person creates, the better they become at spotting kayfabe…and the more willing they are to play along. They know it’s not real, and they don’t care  because they know that’s not the point. Which would mean that the seemingly most easily misled people would be, in reality, the most difficult to trick. Kayfabe is ultimately a fantastic game, where the ones who refuse to play along are boring, the ones who think it’s real are scary, and the best players are the ones who are so firmly embedded in reality that they can ride any flight of fantasy and believe every second of it.

Makes me want to reread Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. He talked a lot about kayfabe in that book, though that’s not what he called it.

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I hope to be done writing and on to editing by the end of the month. Let us hope.

I have actually started a few blog entries over the last few weeks, and just never got them done. I may, in the next few days, finish and post those.

I may also blog about the Hanson concerts I just went to, because hey it’s Hanson and they’re awesome, but also because I always seem to have the most interesting thoughts coming off of a concert high.

So, I suppose this is an update post to say I’m going to be updating soon.

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Anonymous

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?

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