Christine Amsden's Blog: Christine Amsden Author Blog

Holiday Crafts

About three years ago, I decided to teach myself to knit. This involves watching a lot of YouTube videos (over and over again) and a lot of undoing hours’ worth of work because I made a single mistake. This also involved long periods of giving up in frustration because knitting is hard, especially when you’re not even sure how to name the problem so that Google can understand it.

I’ve never been a very crafty person. You might be tempted to blame this on my poor vision, but you’d largely be wrong — there are entire crafting groups specifically for the blind and visually impaired. We can craft with the best of them, often using techniques that rely a bit more on feel and on projects with a little less fine detail. And I do recall, many, many years ago, that I used to crochet but gave it up because I struggled using any hook smaller than a size P (that’s huge). But ultimately, the reason I believe I am not a crafty person is because I am a perfectionist, unforgiving of errors, especially in my own work. It’s a wonder I ever wrote a novel, but there it is!

When I picked up knitting, it wasn’t with some grand plan of making adorable whatevers and selling them on Etsy…my reasoning was far simpler and more embarrassing: I chew my nails, especially when I’m watching TV, and I thought having something to do with my hands would help (I was right).  Those early projects did not inspire me to keep knitting, but whenever I would quit, I started chewing my nails again. So I persevered, motivated by dubious factors that nevertheless proved effective.

Recently, I decided to try knitting a Christmas stocking. This has proven to be a real challenge, but at the same time, I am newly motivated by the desire to give my family something special, something that, imperfect though it might be, was created with love and intention. Holiday crafting, I am beginning to feel, has more room for forgiveness because there is joy in the spirit of creating and giving. And you know, next year, maybe I knit a better stocking.

The stocking pictured here is not my first attempt; it’s my fourth. And unfortunately, I will be tossing the first two because whatever normally-sighted knitters might think, it is not easier for me to cross stitch a pattern onto a finished stocking than to learn fair isle knitting (working two differently colored strands across the same row).  Actually, I’m finding fair isle knitting to be a lot of fun, and I’m absolutely thrilled by the potential for creating truly personalized designs.

Next up…my son wants a dragon on his stocking. We shall see!

On Being Thankful for Time

As I look forward to the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I find myself both feeling thankful for and resistant to one thing we often overlook: time.

If you know me at all, you know that patience is not among my virtues! My favorite thing to be is done, and then it’s all about the what’s next? Yet this year, I find myself appreciating the power of time as I near completion of a draft of Night School, a novel I began in early 2019. Yes, you saw that right … I began this project nearly three years ago, although I have not been working on it continually.

Last year, in August 2020, I “abandoned” the book because, after multiple drafts, I still couldn’t get it right. The truth was that between four drafts that were all starting to blur together, a busy election year, and a pandemic, my brain was not in the right place to finish it. So I wandered away, wrote Knot of Souls (which will begin an agent hunt early next year), and then started wandering in circles, wondering what to write next. And I have a few ideas, but first, I kept feeling the need to reread that old, broken, abandoned draft of Night School. And do you know what I found out?

It’s good!

The only thing the book needed was time and distance. Time for me to move on, space for me to begin feeling objective. Nothing else, certainly no amount of brute force, could have done the trick. As of right now, I am two or three chapters from “The End” (depending upon whether I decide to write an epilogue), and I have learned an important lesson about when to walk away from a project … and when to return.

Night School will still need more in-depth revisions than usual, thanks in large part to many drafts creating a bit of a patchwork quilt of writing quality, but I do believe it will join Knot of Souls in an agent hunt sometime in 2022.

So this year, I am thankful for time, some of which I will be offering to my family this week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Facebook Siege

I realize It’s been a long time since I wrote a new blog post. I kept and regularly updated a blog for many years, but I abandoned it due to a combination of forces. Obviously, blogs aren’t as popular as they once were, and I found myself spending more time on Facebook, where I let my FB Author Page begin to be a substitute. Eventually, so much time had passed that WordPress updates meant my old posts were no longer linked to my front page … they still exist, but I haven’t felt motivated to reorganize them to make them more readily accessible.

Then on Monday, something changed that has me reconsidering my approach. Specifically, Facebook locked me out of my account, claiming suspicion of hacking, and has offered me no recourse to either prove my identity or resolve the situation. Certain Reddit threads claim similar issues went on for weeks or month. At this point, Facebook has laid siege to my account, my profile is dark to other users, and all I can see when I log in is a picture of a chain and a useless message.

The timing here is…interesting. For many months, I have distanced myself from Facebook for the sake of my own mental health. You may have heard stories claiming that Facebook knows its platform has harmful mental health outcomes for youth, but I can attest to it having harmful mental health outcomes for adults as well. From the constant political fear-mongering, complete with angry comments, to uncertainty over the content of my own posts, FB is a world of triggers for someone with serious social anxiety.

Since the start of COVID, things have grown worse. As an active member of several political groups, I watched the anger and fear rise until every time I logged in, I felt a knot of tension before I even began to read. And everyone is yelling at one another! Yes, I understand that might make me seem a little overly sensitive, but it isn’t like the yelling was an isolated incident, and it isn’t like anything is ever resolved. It’s much, much more a game of one-upsmanship and posturing to find a comfortable seat within one’s own echo chamber.

I’m not exactly both sidesing here. I have chosen a side, one I believe is largely right where the other is largely wrong. But I also believe that Facebook has created echo chambers of toxicity that have us spending our energy blaming one another rather than pausing to look at the real culprit: the platform itself.

It was against this backdrop that I went into my account Monday morning to perform a task I had promised to do as the communications chair of a political organization: share our monthly event to other local, like-minded political groups. I’ve performed precisely this task every month for two years; it’s something I have learned to do quickly and efficiently and, given that Facebook has become an increasing trigger in recent weeks, it’s something I wanted to have over and done with. Yet after sharing the event to about six groups, I got my locked out message and haven’t been able to get back in since.

Facebook won’t tell me why they locked me out, only that there was suspicious activity and they believe my account was hacked. I can infer from context that they no longer like me sharing an event to multiple private groups, but that’s not what they said.

Worse, there is no way to get in touch with Facebook support. There is no Facebook support. There are help pages and forms that you can fill out, and I even stumbled over an e-mail address that might or might not be legit … I have conveyed this problem through every outlet I could find, each one making me feel more angry and helpless than the last. The bottom line is that Facebook does not deign to communicate with its vast sea of users; they have all the control, and I have none.

So here I am, already triggered by Facebook in general terms, and now I’m being cast out. And as much as I’d like to simply say, “Okay, fine, I didn’t like you anyway!” the truth is that FB has successfully made themselves essential to both author marketing and political communication work.

What I will say instead is that if and when this situation is ever resolved, my relationship with FB will be changing. I cannot and will not rely upon them to have my best interests at heart, nor will I be lulled into a false sense of security that these things happen to someone else. They have now happened to me.

Step one: Restart my blog. I’ll share the posts through Twitter (and FB, if I’m ever let back in), but I will own the content and have full control over it.

Step two: Rediscover my friends outside of FB. If you’re a friend, and would like to stay in touch, please e-mail me @ christine.amsden@yahoo.com. I can and do reply to emails sent there.

Step three: Get back to writing to take my mind off of things.

Stay tuned for more coming soon!

Lucifer Season 4 (Now on Netflix)

I discovered Luciver a few months ago after the first three seasons were dumped onto Netflix (they were originally aired on Fox). And this a show that’s, well, not good precisely but bad in a specific way that makes it hard to stop watching. You’ve got the literal devil, Lucifer, teamed up with an LA cop to solve murder mysteries that somehow manage to parallel whatever internal struggle Lucifer is going through. I’ve been enjoying the show, although I thought season 3 was too long (with 26 episodes), that it dragged, and I was quite happy to see Netflix wrestle their newest season down ro 10 episodes.

At least, at first.

Season 4 introduces Eve, the first woman, as Lucifer’s new clingy girlfriend. And a priest is trying to destroy Lucifer because of a prophecy about him bringing evil to the Earth. Meanwhile, all our favorite side characters have plenty of stuff going on. And it was good. It just needed…not 26 episodes but more than 10. We needed that happy medium of 13-18 episodes (seasons 1 and 2) because a lot of things happened abruptly and with less setup than I would have preferred.

Despite that, I continue to enjoy this show and will watch season 5, which I understand will be their last.

Shazam!

Loved this new superhero movie from the DC universe!

As always, I was unfamiliar with the comic book when I went into the movie. Basically, Shazam! is a 14-year-old kid who gets imbued with superpowers that make him into “the best version of himself” which is, apparently, in his late twenties. So it’s kinda like if Tom Hanks in Big got superpowers.

I did feel like the beginning was just a bit slow as they set up their characters, beginning in the distant past with the villain’s origin story. I didn’t catch that that’s what was happening, and I think it might have helped it I had.

Then we meet Billy, a kid in foster care looking for the mother he lost many years ago. He rings a doorbell, thinking he might have found her and…no luck. He’s picked up by the cops and placed into yet another foster home.

One of the things I loved most about this movie was that it did NOT villainize foster parents. This is tragically rare, given how many good people there are trying to make a difference in kids’ lives. Of course, there are some bad ones, but anyway. Breath of fresh air. Billy gets put in a home with five other foster kids, and the foster parents were themselves foster kids once upon a time and just really have their hearts in the right place.

Ultimately, Billy’s journey involved accepting this new family instead of fighting against it. This was well done, and my favorite part of the movie.

Although…the HUMOR can’t be downplayed. I laughed out loud so many times I cried. His sidekick Freddy played a big role in this humor, and was an amazing teen actor.

Oh, and speaking of Freddy, how cool was it to have a disabled character play a primary role in a show and his disability wasn’t terribly important at all? Yep. Don’t even know why he walked with a crutch. So much don’t care.

This was a very good movie on a lot of levels, and I really can’t recommend it enough to superhero fans, even marginal superhero fans like me. Well worth it!

The NEW Roswell, Season 1

After 20 years, the CW decided to revisit an old favorite of mine — Roswell — and of course I had to watch. There was no choice, really. The original series is one of the few shows I own, in its entirety, on DVD. So, how did the CW do?

I’m split right down the middle. There are things I enjoyed, and things I hated.

Whenever you reboot an old favorite, you run the risk of undermining whatever made the show work in the first place. For original Roswell, the chemistry between Lix and Max was off the charts. They popped. They sizzled. They made me want to fall in love with them.

Whoever was in charge of casting decisions made a BIG mistake when it came to Max. Nathan Parsons is too brash, too gruff, and just plain too loud. He doesn’t represent any of the underlying vulnerabilities that made the original Mac character so easy to love. He comes across more like a bully in this reboot, with little depth or subtlety. I was so disappointed in him, and honestly wish they’d do a Darren Stevens for Season 2. I won’t mind. Really.

But putting that aside, the CW did make some decisions that, after thinking it through, I liked. Aging the characters up ten years worked, in my opinion, because it gave them more agency than their high school counterparts had, and more power to act both personally and professionally. The main characters themselves became more tightly interwoven into the plot; instead of needing adults to take on most of the adversarial roles, they were the adults and the bad guys were less black and white.

In growing up the characters, I felt like they also grew up the plot. The show felt less magical and more science ficitiony, which I appreciated. Every decision they made in terms of switching around the alien backstory and redefining the science worked, and demonstrated that the underlying concept had more untapped potential than I realized two decades ago.

Even though I didn’t care for Max, I did like that he was a cop. I liked that Kyle was a doctor — it gave him a far better role than he had originally. Alex was a soldier, Maria a psychic bartender, and Liz grew up to be the biologist we always knew she could be. Everyone grew up into a position that made them more capable and integral.

Michael was my favorite character in the original series. Yes, Max and Liz’s chemistry was great, but Michael had more demons and it made him inherently more interesting to watch. His and Mari’s relationship compelled me more than the main one ever did.

Which was why I was a disappointed when they showed, in the first episode, that he and Alex had been lovers. In part, I confess, I didn’t catch on to them making him bisexual stead of homosexual (I apologize profusely for my binary view of the world; well played). But at first, when I thought Michael and Maria weren’t going to happen, I was really bummed. And then, when it turned out they were going to do a triangle, I was…just confused. I don’t really get it, and I don’t mean the sexuality aspect. I’m not clear on what is drawing any of these characters to one another, and what might make Michael choose Alex over Maria. (The possibility that he doesn’t choose, but instead makes it work with both, crossed my mind, but the world doesn’t seem quite ready for that kind of relationship.)

Overall, I thought they did a good job. Maybe not the reboot I would have written, but nobody asked me! I definitely plan to watch season 2.

Flash Fiction Challenge

I’m taking a break from novel writing to test my skills against very, very short (flash) fiction. So of course, I had to get a new candle for inspiration! Here it is, next to my usual large jar candle. Pine scented — perfect for winter months.

Review: The Haunting of Hill House (2018 Series)

Finished Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House today and…I really liked it!


 


I’m not usually into horror, but I happened to have seen the movie version when I was younger and found it to be better than average. Plus it’s Halloween tomorrow so in the spirit of the season, why not give it a try?


 


I was hooked in the first episode, but then things got better. The feel here is subtle, psychological, and the story is built heavily upon relationships and character. Hey, that’s my favorite kind of story!

Charmed Reboot

Apparently CW decided to reboot Charmed, and given that I’ve watched the original series more than once, I kinda had to check out the first episode. My reaction was…mixed.

Positives:

1. This new show is unabashedly political, taking on #metoo with almost brutal head-on force.

2. It also ups the ante on the original show’s feminist themes by having one of the sisters be a lesbian. 

3.. The sisters are all half-sisters this go around, which created an opportunity for one of them to be half black, something I hope they will use to great advantage to be more inclusive and also to take on topics like #blacklivesmatter in future episodes.

4. The youngest sister’s power is telepathy rather than prescience, a better choice IMO for a variety of reasons, not the least is that being able to see the future breaks the plot if you’re at all consistent about it. (The original show was not.)

5. The oldest sister is a scientist (a chemist, if I’m understanding it right), which adds a fun angle. Already, they used both science and magic to beat antagonists and I hope they take this to new levels.

6. The girls are all attached to the local university….one is an undergrad, one a grad student, and one doctoral or post-grad (not clear yet). This gives them something in common besides sisterhood, and I like that the ages have downshifted just a few years to start with. Offers some great opportunities for growth and maturity if the show takes off and they get nine seasons like the original.

7. Using dead languages for spells is definitely better than bad rhymes.

Negatives:

1. Neither the acting nor the writing was great. And no, they weren’t great in the original either, but the overall effect in the reboot was more “after school special” than I would like.

2. I’ve got some vague unsettled feelings about half a dozen minor things the show did — both things they left the same and things they chose to change. This may smooth out over time, but overall I felt myself wishing they’d either kept more the same or gone after more intentional differences. This is probably just my overfamiliarity with the original show talking.

Overall, I do plan to keep watching, although I truly hope the acting and dialog improve! I forgave it in the original, but I’ve come to expect more out of modern television.

Making Use of Feedback

If you are serious about becoming a writer then at some point you will need to show others your work and ask them what they think. When your pet project comes back, scarred beyond recognition in red ink, you have three choices: You can quit writing. You can decide to be a poor, misunderstood artist and never learn or grow. Finally, you can use the feedback to become an even better writer.

The truth is, everyone has room for improvement, but even after you realize this you may not know what to do with those red marks. Do you always make changes where suggested? What if two people contradict one another? What if someone clearly did not “get it?” Do you compromise integrity to make others happy? This workshop addresses all these questions and more as we seek to make sense of constructive (and even destructive) criticism.

I. Good Critique

Before I get into how to interpret other’s critique, I wanted to briefly discuss good criticism. While you will not always receive great criticism, you should always give it. Also, understanding what makes criticism good will help you to interpret it.

A. Critique the story, not the author: This should be self explanatory but basically, never make any assumptions about what the author thinks, feels, or is trying to do. You are reporting your feelings about a piece of literature, not performing psychoanalysis.

B. Make it an opinion: “I thought Frank was a jerk.” is an absolutely true statement. “Frank is a jerk.” is up for debate. Authors tend to receive criticism better when it is written as an opinion rather than as fact, because it is less confrontational and controversial. If you are the author receiving the feedback, you should always interpret comments as an opinion even if the person giving the feedback was less than sensitive.

C. Look for problems, not solutions: It is usually more useful for an author to gauge your reaction to a piece rather than to hear how you would rewrite it. When you start prescribing solutions rather than diagnosing problems, you may not be in tune with the author’s vision and therefore may not be giving useful information. If you do decide to give suggestions for rewriting, you should always pinpoint the problem (as you see it) first. That way, the author can take the information and use it in a way that best serves the story.

D. Be a wise reader: A strategy I picked up from Orson Scott Card (see his books on writing) that works very well for me is the wise reader critique. Anyone who reads can be trained to be a wise reader, and the information they give is golden. When you read a book, you naturally ask certain questions about it. A wise reader notices when they ask the questions and they write it down for the benefit of the author.

i. Oh Yeah? (I don’t believe this.)

ii. So What? (I don’t care.)

iii. Huh? (I don’t get it.)

II. Getting to the heart of the problem

Whether you receive good criticism or not, you need to attempt to understand what the reader felt was the problem with the story. If your car engine stalled you would not start randomly replacing parts before you understood what was wrong. The same thing is true with writing.

A. Diagnosis: If your reader gave you diagnostic information such as a wise reader critique, then your task is much easier. You know the problem and can move on to what (if anything) to do about it.

B. Prescription: If someone gave you suggestions for change without telling you the problem, you are going to have to work backwards. Ask yourself why they would think the change was necessary. Try to look at it through a reader’s eyes and realize that they may not have been reading the story you thought you wrote. (See ‘C’ below)

C. They didn’t seem to “get it”: They very well may not have. I am often amazed to find out what story people actually read when I send something out for feedback. They aren’t wrong. Keep in mind that the story in your head is a separate entity from the story on the paper. Likewise, the story on the paper takes on a life of its own when read by someone else. They bring into it their own biases and personal experiences. They may think Frank is a jerk because they dated this guy in college named Frank who really hurt them. You cannot always control for that but you need to be prepared for it.

III. Should I make a change?

A. There are exactly two times when you should consider making a change.

i. Resonance: If a comment resonates with you, if it just makes sense based on what you are trying to accomplish with your work (be it a short story, novel, or article) then you should, of course, make a change.

ii. Agreement: If many people agree on a problem or weak spot, you should also seriously consider making a change. You may not agree on the solution that any or all of them offered, but it is typically no coincidence when several people all spot the same issue. It can be hard to decide to make a change in this case, if there is no resonance to go along with it, but here are some things you can do.

1. Put it aside for a period of time and re-read it with a fresh eye.

2. Look for creative solutions to a problem. For example, if many people tell you a section is too long you may decide, instead, to make it longer. I often find that the boredom that causes people to suggest cutting can also be remedied by going into more depth, drawing the reader in further, and really highlighting the importance of a certain portion of a story or novel.

B. Contradictions: It can be frustrating when people disagree on an aspect of a story. When one person loves Frank and another thinks he is a jerk, you may find yourself unsure what to do. Let me start by making some observations that may help you put this into perspective.

i. No one’s work will be universally loved.

ii. The very things that make one person fall in love with your work will make someone else hate it. This is true in all aspects of life. I don’t like raspberries, but I bet most of you do. If you were hosting a large dinner party, would you choose a different dessert to accommodate my dislike of raspberries? Perhaps a yummy apple crumble or a turtle cheesecake? Now I like your dessert option but Brian hates cheesecake and Beth isn’t into apples.

In the end, whether the feedback is contradictory or not, you need to consider the same two questions: “Did it resonate? Do many people agree?” If one naysayer contradicts a group, it is probably safe to listen to the majority opinion. If a group seems split down the middle you will simply have to be the tiebreaker.

C. Compromising Integrity: I bring this up only because many beginning writers ask this question. Should I compromise my integrity to please others? Well, that depends upon what you mean by integrity. Obviously, it is your story to tell and in the end you are the person who will tell it. If making a change to please people will make you hate the story or in some way go against your values, then of course you should not make the change. But don’t be the poor, misunderstood artist, either. If you want to be a great writer then you need to understand that the creative process is fluid and that sometimes you need to let the story decide what it wants to be, rather than forcing it to be what you want it to be.

IV. Responding to Feedback

A. Thank you: This is the only appropriate response to someone who has offered to help you by reading your work. Even if you disagree with everything they wrote, even if they were downright mean in their comments, you thank them and do not argue. Your story has to stand alone when it goes out into the world – you won’t be there to hold its hand and back it up with your own answers to people’s comments. If someone asks a question in their feedback, it is rhetorical. You answer it in the rewrite, if at all.

B. Destructive criticism: It happens. Someone may give you back some feedback that says, “You suck as a writer. Don’t quit your day job.” If a person gives you criticism that is downright mean, you simply ignore it and do not ask for their help again. Throw it away.

C. The follow-up question: While it is not okay to try to explain yourself, your story, or argue with someone who has given you advice, it may be acceptable to ask an occasional follow-up question for the sake of clarity. When I sent an early chapter of Touch of Fate out for criticism, I learned that someone felt Marianne, the protagonist, was unsympathetic. I wrote back to him and asked if he could tell me what had given him that impression. He was kind enough to highlight some careless turns of phrase that made her seem uncaring towards her daughter. I was then able to make the changes that helped me sell the book.

V. Re-critique

A. From the same group: This is almost always a bad idea, in my opinion. Personally, I refuse to look at the same story or part of a novel more than one time. Either you followed my advice in the first place or you did not. If you did take my advice, I will be inclined to like it whether or not it works and if you did not take my advice I will be disinclined to like it whether or not your chosen solution was appropriate. Moreover, I know how it ends – or ended, which might even be worse. I cannot give you a fresh, unbiased opinion on a second read-through.

B. From a different person/people: This can work, but I caution you to remember that your story will never be perfect. As many times as you send your work out, you will receive that many suggestions. You cannot please everyone and that is not your goal – it may be your dream but it is not your goal.

C. When is it done? At some point, you have to decide to stop. It will never be done, but you can stop writing and send it to a publisher. Don’t forget that there will always be other stories, other articles, and even other novels. Growing as a writer happens over multiple pieces, not just multiple rewrites of the same piece. Try new things. Be adventurous. Be done.