S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 102

Brain Changers

According to this article by Julia Ryan, reading fiction does great things for your brain. fMRIs performed on the participants after they read some of Pompeii by Robert Harris (excellent book, btw) revealed:

. . . heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, the area of the brain associated with receptivity for language. Heightened connectivity in other parts of the brain suggested that readers may experience “embodied semantics,” a process in which brain connectivity during a thought-about action mirrors the connectivity that occurs during the actual action. For example, thinking about swimming can trigger the some of the same neural connections as physical swimming.

I'm interpreting this to be similar to the sensations one can have when thinking of biting into a popsicle (I feel phantom cold shivers, for example.) We storytellers often talk about engaging the reader, and this study offers interesting scientific proof of that. It also suggests why some books don't work for readers -- possibly because those connections between story and mind weren't made.

What do you think about the potential effects of fiction on the brain? Do you think reading has changed your brain? Tell us in comments.

(Article link swiped from Gerard over at The Presurfer)

Discovering by Doing

Last month I started working on this crazy quilted tote with no particular purpose in mind. Almost everything else I'd worked on in 2013 was for gifts or promo purposes, and I wanted to do something for stitching practice. Projects like these allow me to try new ideas, too.

When I make practice projects I always use scraps and leftover floss and beads so I don't waste materials. I also try to use up supplies I don't particularly like for whatever reason (this bag got stuck with a length of velvet ribbon and a swatch of faux-silk cotton, both in bright Barbie/Pepto Bismol pink.) My logic for using unwanted bits is that if I completely screw it up I can toss it in the scrap bin without any tears.

I made some poor choices with this bag from the start: the blinding white canvas handles (neutral would have been better), two Victorian novelty prints I considered interesting (actually too busy) and a butterfly I cobbled together from an organza floral accent piece and a rhinestone earring (it looked so great in my head, but after the execution? Not so much.) I'm also a little allergic to sequins, so discovering the semi-transparent type already sewn on my silk flower and my butterfly base annoyed me. I admit, I was a bit all over the place with the color palette, too.

Despite this, I worked on this bag every night for four weeks. I didn't like it, I was already mad at myself for some of the decisions I'd made, but I also suspected I could learn something from it. I've been experimenting for a couple of years now with mixing crystals, pearls, satin ribbons and lace for embellishment. Lately I have this running pink/gold/antique white/gray theme that usually works out well, and I decided to go with some variations on the bag.

I was fairly happy with some of what I did on the front of the bag, but a satin ribbon I wanted to use for the back turned out to have a bunch of pin marks and puckers in it. Beading it the way I had planned would showcase every blemish. I also had a slightly tattered ivory cotton eyelet ribbon I'd meant to pair with the mangled ribbon, but once I pinned it in place I could see that my pearls and crystals would look a little silly edging the many large flower-shaped spaces in it.

I sewed and ripped and beaded and snipped as I tried several things I've done in the past, but none of them really worked with the ribbon or the lace. Right as I was about to toss it in the scrap bin I decided to let go of what I expected and wanted and instead try something entirely new. I sewed different-colored pearls in the eyelet spaces of the lace, and then embroidered and beaded over the mangled ribbon with contrasting beads and floss. As I was working on it I was almost 100% sure it would end up looking like crap, but what the heck. Nothing ventured, right?



Of all the work I did on the bag, the make-do/try something new sections with the lace and ribbon you see here turned out to be the best-looking of my handwork. They finished so well you might think that I'd planned it all that way from the start with brand-new materials.

We can talk about our work, and study techniques, and read piles of books about it (you don't want to know how many books on quilting and embellishment that I've read.) Having discussions as well as studying how to be better at what we do are great, and we should do as much of that as we can. That said, sometimes the only way to discover what you can do is to simply do it and keep doing it until you figure it out or you work it out or it just happens. We all know that practice really doesn't make anything perfect, but it can give you the time, space and challenges you need in order to make new discoveries about your work -- and yourself.

What have you learned to do better simply by doing it? Let us know in comments.

Who Plays Me?

Answer nine questions in this online quiz and you'll find out which actor would play you in a movie. Here are my results:



A bit young and far too pretty to play me, I think, and I don't know what that dream unicorn ref means (which proves how old and unhip I am.) So who plays you? Post your results in comments.

(Online quiz link nicked from Gerard at The Presurfer)

A Charming Challenge

In February I'm joining in the 2014 edition of a month of letters, a correspondence-writing challenge created by author Mary Robinette Kowal. Here's a description of the challenge in her words:

"In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch. Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items. All you are committing to is to mail 23 items. Why 23? There are four Sundays and one US holiday. In fact, you might send more than 23 items. You might develop a correspondence that extends beyond the month."

Postal rates here in the U.S. are increasing as of January 26th, so if you want to join in figure stamps for 23 first class, one ounce letters will run you $11.27 for domestic and $26.45 for international.

While I have a fairly constant circle of correspondents to whom I write regularly, I thought it would be interesting to add a personal spin to my participation by sending half of my letters to people I don't know very well and/or with whom I've had only very limited contact. It's easy to write to close friends and family; a bit tougher to reach out to someone who is simply an acquaintance.

I'll report back at the beginning of March on how it went. Anyone else interested in taking up the challenge? Let us know in comments.

Work It Ten

Ten Web Sites with Jobs for Writers

AbsoluteWrite.com Forums: Check out the Freelance & Work for Hire section in the forums for open calls. Mostly sub ops for anthologies, e-zines and start-up book publishers.

Ed2010.com: Looking for magazine jobs, freelance article work, editorial positions, internships, etc.? Check out these classified listings.

Editor & Publisher.com: Searchable classified listings for those of you who are looking for writing, editing and other publishing employment.

Ellora's Cave: We could rename it "Romantica and Erotica Sub Ops R Us." To see where your work might fit in, read up on EC's extensive line of imprints here.

Freelance Writing Jobs: Job leads for just about every kind of publishing job. Probably the best daily-published listings of wide-spectrum writing jobs on the internet.

JournalismJobs.com: This one provides global job listings for media professionals.

Mediabistro: Lots and lots of industry job listings here.

Ralan.com: if you're writing SF, fantasy or horror fiction, this is the place where you'll find the most market listings for your novels and stories. Also especially good for timely listings for anthology and contest open calls.

Samhain Publishing: An established and respected online e-publisher; wants novels in "all genres of romance and erotica, as well as fantasy, urban fantasy and science fiction with strong romantic elements." Currently branching out into reprints and horror, too.

The Market List: Geared toward genre writers; offers resources as well as market listings.

Comments Catchup Day No More

Last year I began devoting Sundays strictly to reading and answering comments left here at PBW; something I've never been very good at doing. For a few months it worked, too. Having an entire day to review the week's posts and chat with my visitors helped me be more responsive and show my appreciation for those of you who brave the comment form to leave some remarks.

The number of comments began to decline almost immediately in the wake of this feature, however, and I think that may be due to me trying to answer all of them. Also, I'm not always able to spend even one day per week answering comments; often bad weather or the usual domestic disasters conspire to keep me offline. Seems silly to schedule a day to answer comments and then not be able to show up and do that.

So my first change to the blog for 2014 is to eliminate comments catchup day. I will try to keep responding to the comments you leave here, although I can't promise when. I'll also skip answering any comments that don't really invite or need a reply from me.

Comments will remain on moderation, primarily to prevent SPAMmers from flooding them with their dreck, as I still get hit about five or ten times a week from those pinheads. For any questions you have about comments here at the blog, see section E. on the About PBW page over there on the sidebar.

Doing Things Undone

My first work-related task of 2014 was to hang the new calendar up in my writing space. It's that stark but peaceful Zen edition I bought at B&N with my Christmas gift card, and it looks neat and calm on the wall. I think I'm going to like keeping track of my work weeks in black and white, and hopefully it reminds me to knock on the sky and listen to the sound (quoting it here.)

My second and third tasks were to finish some work leftover from 2013. For various reasons it was tough but at the same time brought some relief; unfinished things weigh on me terribly. I think every week I'm going to tackle things like this, all these little and big things I've set aside or put on the back burner or otherwise left hanging, and do whatever it takes to get them done. The good feeling of getting it done chased away my post-holiday blues, and now I feel more prepared to get back on a regular work schedule on Monday.

It's amazing how many lives we can have going at the same time, isn't it? The family life, the personal life, the professional life, the writing life, the social life, the online life -- toss in hobbies and friends and volunteer work and before you know it you're trying to live ten lives all at once. We all multi-task like postal sorters on amphetamines, and yet more and more it seems we can't get things done. Focus on any one of your lives for any length of time in order to finish something, and the others start to suffer, create problems for you and/or dwindle. You almost have to be a master juggler to integrate it all, keep everything moving and not drop anything. How can we get things done if we're too busy to realize how much we have waiting, unfinished?

That's also what I want to work on this year, and while I need to meditate a bit more on the solution I think downsizing and simplifying wherever/whenever I can will help.

So what's up with you all? Tell me in comments.

Talk Like a . . .

Answer an easy 25-question quiz about how you pronounce words, and the New York Times will show where you most fit in dialect-wise on a U.S. map.

I took the test, and here are my results:



How accurate is the test? Well, in my case, 99.9%. As a young kid I lived about three blocks south of Pembroke Pines, and later spent much of my teen years in Fort Lauderdale. I'll guess the Jacksonville crept into my speech patterns when I was a young adult and commuted there for work for several years.

(Test link filched from Gerard over at The Presurfer)

First Reads of 2014

I thought I'd kick off my 2014 reading year with books and mags I was given or bought during the holidays. Here's what I picked:



And, what I thought:

I picked up a copy of Writer's Digest Writer's Yearbook 2014 special issue because of the market listings; I needed the info for some future sub op posts. Kevin Kaiser has a decent article with some smart strategies on self-promotion for those of you who are looking more for theory, but the rest isn't all that new or interesting. I do think the market listings make it worth the cover price, though.

The Cuckoo's Calling by J.K. Rowling (at first pretending to be a guy writer named Robert Galbraith until the publisher realized no one was buying the book and accidentally/artfully spilled the beans) is a private detective mystery. It's easy to sneer over a book that didn't sell until everyone knew who really wrote it, but I thought it was okay. Middle of the road, earnestly-written -- like a lot of popular hardcover crime fic, in fact (disclaimer: I'm not really a P.I. mystery fan, but I started with P.D. James's Dagliesh novels, so as a result I expect my reading bar is a bit higher than most.) There were a few size references for the protag that also made me envision that kindly giant character Hagrid from Harry Potter, but otherwise it seemed to be entirely Hogwart-free. I would not recommend it for youngsters due to the violence, language and certain themes -- J.K. does sprinkle the eff word about quite liberally -- but fans of Michael Connolly and his sort might find it mildly diverting.

Land of the Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel. How do I describe this reading experience, besides regret over the large chunks of three days of my life spent plowing through it that I'll never get back? I had wondered why so many of you had nothing good to say about the book when I mentioned it last year, and hindsight says I should have listened to you. It's true that I haven't really loved the series since the end of The Mammoth Hunters, but I was hanging on until we could get to the last novel, you know? I even waited an extra two years before I cracked this puppy so I'd be emotionally ready to let go.

Am now quite ready. Fasten your seatbelts, friends.

Probably the most annoying thing was all the repetition, repetition, rep -- I mean, how many times did we really have to hear the Mother's song in its entirety? I'm thinking not twenty-seven, how about you? Or what it was like to bring the horses into a strange camp and calm people's fears about them (fifty times), or show them how to pet Wolf and feel his neck fur (ninety times), or be introduced to Ayla and hear all her titles (two hundred times), or see the same fricking boring cave paintings of horse heads and elephant heads and what have you over and over (I'm not counting those. After the third cave, I just skipped over those scenes.) I think some of you mentioned that, too.

And what was with the kid and whipping her out of the carrying blanket so she could pee on the ground? Why, exactly, did I have read that four hundred times? Jean, honey, I've potty-trained a daughter. After the first perfectly-timed piddle it's just not that impressive. And that's in real life -- but in fiction? Even less.

I know how difficult it is to end a series, so I think I could have forgiven all the repeats and dragginess, but whoever was playing the part of Ayla in this book was not the Ayla I know from The Valley of Horses. That Ayla would have never stood around so much, or uttered all this housekeeping dialogue, or treated Jondalar like an unreliable babysitter instead of the love of her life, or perpetually kissed the First's butt for reasons I'm still not straight on (and don't get me started on that portion of the story. Your seatbelt will snap.) No, my Ayla would have packed up her sling and dragged Jondalar back to the Mamutoi and gone on thrilling hunts and invented more cool stuff and tamed some more critters and kept me from falling asleep. This Ayla was about as engaging as Zzzzzzquil.

No reunion with Durc, so that was a huge disappointment. I should have expected that, but I really wanted Ayla to see her kid again, one last time. I was led to believe it would happen. Remember the dream she had where her Clan son meets her Other son and they fight or something? I think that was in The Mammoth Hunters. What happened to that coming true?

Then, toward the end, in the last part . . . I won't get into specifics so I don't totally spoil the end, even though I want to, but Jondalar and Marona? After what that witch did to Ayla in Shelters? Okay, maybe my disbelief might have eventually stretched to accomodate that drop into fictional relationship hell -- Jondalar could have had a complete lobotomy at the Big Summer Meeting, right? -- but then to follow it up with Ayla and Laramar? Really? Laramar? No, really? Laramar? Laramar ?

JM&J. I never like to caps-yell, but the next time you all tell me not to read a book, I swear, I AM GOING TO LISTEN TO YOU.

To end on a positive note, the Winter 2014 issue of Pages magazine has just hit the racks, and this one has another great assortment of ideas and projects for your handmade books, journals and art journaling. I was amused to see the "Pocket Star" journal (have to make one of those for my editor) but I thought Gina Lee Kim's Washi Tape Art Journal project and Shayna Butler's article on what to put in an idea book were especially inspiring. I also applaud the editors for continuing to provide fresh new projects, many of which use recycled materials, for those of us who love to make books.

So what have you read so far in 2014? Let us know in comments.

Wishing You