Sara Ryan's Blog, page 12

Stumptown!

Hello yes! If you were wondering if the note on my Events page that says I’ll be at the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend was just a vicious lie, let me reassure you.

I am totally going to be there, at least from 12-2 on Saturday at the Periscope Studio table, and perhaps also at other times.

I will not have copies of Bad Houses because they do not yet exist. But you should still come by if you are curious about the book.

Also you should follow this cryptic elliptical Tumblr.

Driftwood

Do you see the eye?

A bird head in this one.

Reaching hands.

Smiling dog-head.

Other people, I am given to understand, go to the beach and look at the ocean.

I do that too. But I cannot resist the pareidolia possibilities that driftwood offers.

Sit with the discomfort.

Often during yoga, the teacher will talk about “sighing something away” or “letting something go” when we’re in the midst of a challenging pose.

And I have no trouble thinking of something I’d like to not be worrying about. But I can only rarely visualize letting it go, or sighing it anywhere except right back into my head, just where it was.

Today she said that one of the founders of the kind of yoga we’re doing says that part of the point of doing it is to “sit with the discomfort.”

That, while still challenging, actually seemed much more doable.

I wasn’t trying to banish anything forever. I was just putting my body into a particular shape and staying in it until she told us to transition.

And I began to think about what it means to “sit with the discomfort” when we write.

It’s often literally sitting, sitting with the computer, or the notebook, or into space, when nothing will cohere, coalesce, or achieve coherence.

The discomfort can be decision fatigue, when you’ve figured out the mechanics of several scenes and you know these characters have to do SOMETHING ELSE AFTER ALL THAT but you have no idea what it might be.

Or you know what it has to be eventually, but they’re only at Point B and they need to get to Point X.

ARGH.

WHEN DO WE GET TO MOVE.

Of course, no teacher is going to appear to tell you it’s time to transition.

But sometimes if you sit with the discomfort long enough, something opens up, and you know where to go next.

In which Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan and Laini Taylor are smart.

Yesterday Laini Taylor and I went to Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan‘s Portland tour stop. It was in the midst of a mall. The large, enthusiastic crowd blended seamlessly with the people bringing small children to have photos taken with the Easter Bunny.

Said bunny was sufficiently interested to temporarily abandon his post, as you see.

Various folks were watching from above, as well.

I wondered how many of them were simply idly curious, and how many were fans who’d strategically staked out that vantage point.

Events at this scale are really endurance exercises for the authors (case in point: Cassie needed to ice her signing hand afterwards), so we were glad they had enough energy afterwards to hang out for a while.

Of course one of the things we talked about was writing. I brought up some issues I’m having with a thing I’m working on, and as you might well suspect, they had some fantastic insights.

Example insight, worldbuilding variety:

When status quo in your narrative is that a particular practice has been suppressed for some time, you should have a clear sense of what society was like before the suppression began. What motivated said suppression? How and by whom it was done? What have the consequences of the suppression been, both intended and unintended? As I type this I’m thinking wow, you should really have figured all that out a long time ago.

But sometimes you need other writers to ask you the right questions. Thanks, ladies.

Salad with lots of stuff in it, for spring

This is one of those “what is in the refrigerator/pantry and how can I combine it with minimal effort & maximum deliciousness” pseudo-recipes.

1 frozen chicken breast

some lemon pepper

some sun-dried tomatoes, like a little more than a quarter cup

some olive oil

Put the chicken in a baking dish. Drizzle the olive oil over it and sprinkle the sun-dried tomatoes around it. Bake it at 350 degrees until it’s done, which will take probably about half an hour, maybe a little more or less depending on size. You want it to not be pink inside, basically.

When the chicken is done, dice it up along with the sun-dried tomatoes and combine it with:

some more olive oil

half a bag of broccoli slaw

half a bag of baby spinach

an apple, diced

some sliced or slivered almonds

some kosher salt

some lemon juice, like just enough so it complements the olive oil

I would include a photo but it is gone already.

Poison is coming.

If you’re anywhere near Portland, please join me and many other friends of Bridget Zinn for a launch event for POISON at A Children’s Place Bookstore, 6 PM Saturday March 16th.

Recently sighted

Sidewalk chalk enhances a bit of Central Library‘s exterior:

The art below is on display at The Observatory; unfortunately I didn’t spot the artist’s name, but if anyone knows, please to comment. The detail that appears to be a hair ornament is actually the reflection of one of the hanging lamps; I liked the way it echoes the shape around the spoon-in-the-process-of-being-bent.

And in case you thought I’d stopped spotting street art, here’s a mixed media example:

 

Sometimes yoga is about writing

It is kind of springlike around these parts.

I returned from elsewhere, also known as Salt Lake City, where I was fortunate enough to enjoy the hospitality of Ms. Sara Zarr. We recorded an episode of her This Creative Life podcast which you might like to hear. I met a whole bunch of other nifty SLC authors.

I also wrote quite a lot of words, for me.

Of course as soon as I got back the usual deluge of domestic tasks and dayjobbery descended and it became, unsurprisingly, more difficult to write lots of words every day. (Although I’ve managed some words every day, and I have, indeed, not broken the chain.)

Today I’d been feeling cranky and out of sorts about this relative lack of words, and how slowly the writing was going, and my chronic inability to estimate how long any particular writing project will take. I needed to write more, but it was time to go to yoga, and I’d missed several classes while I’d been away, so I went.

And the teacher talked about the importance of showing up. How some days the practice will be effortless and sweet, and others it will seem like nothing works and you can’t get yourself where you’re supposed to be, and everyone else is more flexible, and what you’re doing is totally not worth it. But that it’s always worth it, even when — maybe especially when — it feels like it isn’t. Effort, sustained over time, she said, can make great change.

Away, away

I am elsewhere for the next little while.

Elsewhere has dramatic vistas.

But mostly instead of appreciating the vistas I am looking at this very screen, with the Internet off.

And, you know, typing words in my Scrivener window.

Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked: storytelling lessons from Avatar the Last Airbender

I’d been hearing praise for Avatar: the last Airbender (link is to the show’s Wikipedia entry, so if you’re new to the show, ‘ware spoilers) for a long time before I finally started watching. Once I did, I couldn’t stop. As with other shows with which I’ve become obsessed, I was simultaneously enjoying it as a fan and learning from it as a writer.

Good research builds better worlds. The Avatar creators drew inspiration from multiple sources. (This article attempts to catalog them.) One example: the central conceit of the world is bending; martial arts involving the ability to manipulate air, water, earth, or fire — or in the case of the Avatar, all four elements. Each style of bending is inspired by a real-world martial art. As a result, the styles are both internally consistent and quite distinct from each other, and this makes bending itself seem more real. (Real enough that there are numerous ‘airbending lesson’ videos on YouTube.)

Shifts in tone can work. Sometimes Avatar is deeply goofy. Sometimes there are dramatic action sequences. Sometimes it’s poignant. Often, it’s all three within a single episode. It works because the shifts feel genuine, not jarring. Humor cuts tension, action sequences ratchet it up again, and poignant moments strengthen the viewer’s connection to the characters.

An intergenerational cast expands your options. Although most of the main cast members are young, there are important older characters, most notably Iroh, Prince Zuko’s uncle. Iroh’s age gives weight to his role as a mentor and provides a stronger link to the world’s history, for the simple reason that he’s lived through more of it. Iroh embodies the capacity for change and growth that other characters eventually learn.

Callbacks are a fine way to reward fans’ attention. ’Callback‘ is one of my favorite terms of art. It comes from standup comedy, and it means a joke that refers to a previously established joke or premise. Avatar does this to notable effect with a variation on the Fruit Cart trope.

You can’t go wrong with a flying bison. Admittedly, you can’t put a flying bison in your own writing unless a. you work for Nickelodeon, b. you are writing fanfic or c. you are Gene Yang. But by extension: animal characters, particularly animal characters that fulfill multiple functions — Appa’s include but are not limited to transportation, defense and emotional support — can add warmth and depth.

But none of these lessons work unless you combine them, as Avatar does, with the most important one: respect your audience.