Eric Witchey's Blog: Shared ShadowSpinners Blog , page 3

Cancelling Art from the Edges

Source: Khafizh Amrullah

Cancelling Art from the Edges

Eric Witchey

I have an author friend whose books I love. I’ll call her Barb. However, I must admit that when I read Barb’s work it is hard for me to avoid hearing her voice. It’s a difficult problem. Do I like her books because of my experience living the illusion of the story, or do I live the illusion of the story more completely because I like the author?

This question leaves no doubt in my mind that a reader’s experience is influenced by their understanding of the author. Whether imagined or based on personal experience, the influence of the author haunts the reading experience.

In my university days, some of the classes were designed to expose students to “controversial voices” from various periods of literature. Admittedly, the voices were usually, but not always, safely from the past. I was in no danger of meeting Aldous Huxley, Lord Byron, Sylvia Plath, or Alexander Pope. Each of them had critics, haters, and people generally cooperating to undermine their work during and after their lives.

Paraphrasing their haters, past and present: Huxley was a known associate of homosexuals and an evil leftist. Byron was an entitled hedonist, opium addict, profligate, and seducer of men and women. Plath was a pretentious, intellectual woman who wasted her time writing about lesbians and other topics best left unspoken, and, after all, she was mentally ill, friends with a drug user, and she and her friend both committed suicide. Alexander Pope, well, certainly a man who advocates cannibalism and attempts to undermine the order of the Kingdom should be ignored if not imprisoned and executed! Don’t even get me started on the founding fathers. Those godless, treasonous, insurrectionist slaver hypocrites were the worst of all! Shouldn’t we toss out the constitution instead of trying to extend its benefits equally to all people? The very idea of extending the state’s protection of freedom and equality to all goes against the long-standing traditions of respect for superior bloodlines bestowed upon the chosen by divine right!

Given the parochial attitudes and beliefs of the masses and the self-serving alignment of power against these writers, I cannot imagine what the lives of these artists might have looked like under the scrutiny of the internet microscopes we apply today.

Personally, excepting the authors I’ve known well enough to hear in my head while reading, I’ve never had trouble separating the artist from the art. That doesn’t mean I excuse authors of responsibility for their behavior, and it never means I support themes that justify behavior that hurts other human beings in any way. However, understanding the value of the work in the context of culture and “liking” a theme or an author’s personal behavior are simply not the same thing. In fact, I find it both a joyful thing and sad that the internet has become a place where all opinions, no matter how undiscerning, can be heard and amplified. It is, in a very real way, a great equalizer—an experiment in open democracy. In another way, it is limiting in that it raises the value of unconsidered opinions that once required editorial vetting before reaching the public eye.

The Purple Rose of Cairo was a brilliant film. Enjoying it on a thematic and technical level is very easy for me. At the same time, I find myself in gut-level agreement that the cancellation of Woody Allen’s biography was much deserved. That said, I have no personal evidence for the latter. I’m only reacting at a gut level to my exposure to the unfettered, mob information available via feeds, social media, and popular new services.

Years ago, before any controversy surrounded Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game was the first full book I was able to read after the burnout I experienced from grad school. Because of the profound relief and gratitude I felt when I finished that book and fully internalized the knowledge that I was still able to read a science fiction novel for the sheer pleasure of immersion in the world and ideas, Ender will forever be part of my life. I followed Ender with Seventh Son and its sequels in the Alvin Maker series, and I loved them. That said, and my relationship with all organized religion being strained at best, I have no desire to meet Mr. Card even though I know he might well be a grounded, intelligent, generous, kind soul. I certainly have no personal experience to suggest otherwise, but the swirl of noise around his name has triggered my own deep defense mechanisms and made me resistant to the idea of meeting him.

Still, I am grateful to him and the difficulties of his life for giving me Ender and Alvin.

I believe liberals and conservatives alike should read Atlas Shrugged even though I find it reprehensible on a thematic level and would never, ever want to meet the author. When I met Terry Brooks, who brought so much magic into the lives of readers, he came across as condescending and rude. Perhaps I triggered him. I know he is kind to others, and I saw him being very kind and generous with others. My impression of him from a weekend of interaction where we were both teaching at a conference doesn’t mean I went home and burned the books I loved so much in my teens and twenties. I have no idea what his life is like. I don’t know how he came to the moment we met. Nothing he did or said to me had any influence over the many hours of pleasure I received from him through the pages of his work—work crafted by a complex human being to create those experiences for other human beings.

When I met Christopher Moore while we were both teaching at a conference, he screwed up the inscription on a gift for my brother’s birthday because he was flirting with a conference minion. We grew up 11 miles apart in Ohio. My assumption of common ground in my 30-second chat after standing in the signing line was completely ignored. The experience was deeply disappointing, and at some conferences experienced by a different person, that moment might have resulted in a growing storm of rumor-based resentment that spilled over into blogs, Instagram reactions, and Tweets. For me, it was annoying, but I have to admit the minion was willing and worth a little flirtatious banter by a bored author signing book after book after book. I still read Mr. Moore’s books because they make me smile. My brother loved the gift and even the flawed inscription. Mr. Moore went on to write more books I like, and we will meet again someday.

Anne Perry was convicted of murdering her friend’s mother. Should we never read her mysteries? Do we toss out the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton because of drug abuse and because they committed suicide? Should we dump George Orwell because he was socially awkward, had complex relationships, advocated certain popular prejudices of the day, and was a leftist? Ayn Rand for her acidic Spencerian Darwinism? Hemingway for his depression, drinking, condescension, willingness to trick aspiring writers into absurd behaviors, and cruelty to animals?

Hmm… Tricking writers and abusing animals may be the same thing.

Personally, I believe I would have disliked Hemingway for many reasons, but I still hold dear The Old Man and the Sea, and, much like King Lear, every year I age Santiago’s fishing trip becomes more powerful to me.

In thirty years as a full-time, freelance writer, I have never met a writer who didn’t have brilliant light and deepest darkness tangled up inside them, haunting them, and driving their behavior on some level. When the darkness takes their behavior across societal, and legal, boundaries, they often create responses and consequences they deserve. When that same combination only appears in their private lives and between the covers of books, they may be no less a monster in the world. Nor are they any less a saint when the light inside them dominates their behavior. The insight of the most troubled people at the edges of our world may tempt people who want to simplify the human experience into good and evil to mount campaigns of cancellation. However, time and history have shown that the insights from the brightest and darkest edges of human experience are often most valued over time. Sadly, which insights are the brightest and which are the darkest can only be determined by the readers of the future—provided those works exist for consideration.

For me, the works of artists of all kinds stand alone and are, in some measure, born of the perspectives that are part and parcel with the individual’s twisting, tangled mix of light and darkness. I would have it no other way.

-End-

Imagination, Curated

by Christina Lay

Most writers have heard the admonition to read extensively in their chosen genre.  This is solid advice and I’m not here to quibble with it. Getting familiar with tone, tropes, voice, conventions, clichés and trends will help you to not only internalize structure and build your novel, but fine tune your approach to marketing and identify your target audience. What I’d like to point out is that the opposite is also true: read extensively outside of your chosen genre.

You’re probably thinking, how much time does she think I have? I read what I like, and what I’d like to emulate, so shove off, random blog writer of dubious intelligence.

Or possibly you’re thinking, why, yes, I know it’s important to feed my inner artist and gather knowledge and perspective from all parts of the globe.  Terrific! That’s a good start.  I’ve been a history buff for most of my writing life, and I know the nonfiction books I’ve read have greatly contributed to the scope and span of my fiction.  My suggestion would be to go further, and to read books you have little interest in, or maybe even make you uncomfortable.

Why, in this time of stress and too little relaxation, would you spend your down time hefting up some dreary tome on the economics of snail farming in New Zealand?  Well, you don’t have to go that far.  Just pick something unexpected, random, oddly intriguing, and preferably, by authors from segments of the global society you know little or nothing about.

I would much rather curl up with a cozy mystery than stretch and work out my brain with something challenging, but I’m finding that this practice is becoming more important than ever, and not just for writers.

I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that social media and online marketing curates the articles we see and the ads that flash in the sidebars of every webpage we ever access. Facebook micromanages our “news” feeds, and Google obsesses over our every click.  No matter how aware of this you might be, our world is shrinking, and it takes a vigilant consumer to battle against it.

Books, you might think, are a realm free from the tentacles of high tech. Let’s put aside any influence Amazon might have over your book buying habits and imagine we’re all perusing the shelves of our local bookstores with free will intact.  Did a friend recommend a title? Are you looking for a favorite author’s new release? Did you hear so-and-so is the up and comer in your genre, and you want to check them out?  All of these motivating factors are also curated, in their fashion. Your friend is most likely someone with similar tastes, not to mention social circles, socioeconomic class, a shared culture. If not, great, but we mostly hang out with people who are like us. Getting hooked on a favorite author is awesome, but also limiting. Best sellers, well, let’s head on back up to how Amazon and the other big book pushers influence who is published, not to mention who makes it to that book shelf in front of you, who gets marketing funds, and who gets to flash on your sidebar as you try to find out more about snail farming in New Zealand.

It’s all curated, winnowed, narrowed, marketing… all for you! Sometimes that’s helpful, especially if it comes through more organic word of mouth recommendations. But how often has your friend let you down, recommending something only because “everybody” is talking about it. The new trashy, actual piece of garbage that sold well because it went viral, so to speak. But I digress…

None of these methods for choosing your next read are bad or terrible, but the more we read, click and talk about what we like, the more our circle of options shrinks. What you don’t find out about, you won’t read. Our input and outlay of information becomes a closed loop, reining us in, choking off the weedy and wild pathways by which oddities and illuminations creep into our brains. And if we writers don’t keep the weird and wild in circulation, who will?

To hack my way back to the original point; yes, becoming familiar with your genre is a good idea.  But becoming familiar with every and all genres is better. At the same time that you internalize the beats, rhythms and expectations of your chosen genre, try also to freshen and widen your approach by reading books with different beats, rhythms and expectations. Like feeds like, which can be helpful, but also stifling. When you go to the bookstore the next time, pick an author, genre and subject that you’ve never read before. Mix it up. Confuse the algorithms in your head as well as the ones lurking in your phone. Possibly it will upset the apple cart of your streamlined novel writing process, but consider for a moment how that might be a good thing.

Interview with Author Sarah Sokol

By Cynthia Ray

Today I’m interviewing up and coming author Sarah Sokol on her latest book, The Perils of Presumption.

Sarah,I enjoyed this book. It incorporates fantasy, mystery and romance in a lovely way, with a feeling of intrigue, adventure, and excitement.   The ending is a surprise, happy, but perhaps not.

Thank you. Those are always the words I’m hoping will be associated with my writing. Mystery is a new genre for me, and it was definitely tricky, but the research involved was fun. I like stories and characters that feel complex, and draw you to the end with a niggling sensation that not all is what you may have thought, or that perhaps the ending won’t be so happy for everyone after all. I also love building up worlds that feel real and complex, full of all sorts of rules and details that may never come into play in the story I am telling, but create a sense of realism even when I’m trying to bake up a totally new world from scratch. That being said, it really is the characters and their relationships that are most important in my books. 

You have written in other genres as well.  Perhaps this is why it works so well in this novel.

Many of the authors I admire have published books in various genres, or a combination of genres in each book. My appreciation of that influences my writing, but I admit, often I mix genres as an excuse to add a romance subplot to my fantasy, urban fantasy, scifi, or alternate historical fiction. I tend to focus my greatest efforts upon fantasy, as magic has that special draw for me,and makes anything seem possible. Deep and abiding friendships are a recurring theme in my books as well, with romance that feels realistic, built on trust and affection. 

I was sorry to come to the end of the book.  Are there more in the works?

Yes. Perils is the first book in The Conclave Trilogy, with the second and third books already written and just awaiting another round of edits. The second book is called The Dangers of Denial and centers around two brand new characters in the same universe, while the third book, The Hazards of Hope, brings the story to a climactic conclusion centering around a growing villainous threat foreshadowed in The Perils of Presumption! It was a brand-new experience for me to write three books surrounding the same set of characters, world and story, and I fell in love with the Conclave universe during the process. The sequels allowed me to explore more unconventional characters within the conventional setting, and strong female characters completely unlike Charlotte from book one. Finishing the trilogy helped me to quicken the pace on the sequel to my first published book, Death Tally.  This is the favorite book I’ve written so far, because of the research required.

As you write, what motivates you to keep going, when things get tough?

Sometimes, there is nothing that will force it to happen and I just need to give it time. Sleep a lot, or travel if I can, observe people, taste new foods, see new things and get new perspectives, then come back, start typing and try again. However, on a day-to-day basis, when the story ideas are there but the motivation to get them on paper is missing, setting time goals is really helpful, and I will write a little each day, even if it’s only a paragraph. Often if I start with only a paragraph as my goal, I’ll end up wanting to keep going anyway! 

As a young author, how have you gone about building a platform to make your fiction available to a wider audience? 

There are a lot of websites that allow you to publish fiction, interact with other authors, post your new story ideas for edits, read other fiction, make friends and build an audience of people who love free fiction online. One website I’ve used for years now is Wattpad, which provides a lot of opportunities for writing competitions of all kinds, joining their Wattpad Stars program, and other opportunities depending on your level of participation. I’ve built a moderate audience through these means. Of course, being active on social media, having a website, and being consistent helps! There are little tricks and promotional tools that Amazon provides when you publish through them as well, that allow you to get a new wave of readers now and then. I always recommend joining a local writing group if you can manage to find one! It’s vastly helpful even if you’re just getting together to write and talk about writing. 

What authors or books inspired you? 

Growing up, my house was filled to the brim with classics. Whenever the difficult question of my favorite book pops up, I tend to answer Jane Eyre. I love how Charlotte Bronte was able to delve into a single character and her life, making me able to feel the things she felt and see the world through her eyes, taking me through the ups and downs of her whole existence. I aspire to create someone so real that they could become a friend to the reader in the same way I felt like a friend to Jane Eyre.

I also adore romance, not the typical bosoms-heaving alpha male toxicity, but genuine love, like that portrayed in The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. Fantasy novels have always sparked my imagination as well, from the very first time I listened to the Chronicles of Narnia on audio book. Growing up in an extremely religious household, other types of fantasy novels such as Harry Potter were discouraged, but I always managed to find young adult books revolving around magic, mystery and romance that my parents could accept. Although Tamora Pierce is one of my biggest inspirations, and she was banned in our house, possibly due to some content dealing with young women exploring their sexuality. Tamora Pierce found her way into my heart, and I snuck her books into my room at night to experience the beautiful, effortless worlds she created. 

Thanks for sharing your work with us, and I look forward to reading your next book!

Thank you for this opportunity!

You can find more about Sarah here: 

How to Write a Logline

by Lisa Alber

I recently completed the first draft for THE SHADOW MAIDEN. As first drafts go, it’s cleaner than usual (for me) because I’d overhauled it as I was writing maybe a dozen times. I’m happy it’s done, to say the least!

I’ve got it out to a reader for developmental feedback. Meanwhile, I started to think about my agent after a few years of being incommunicado. I started to worry. It’s one thing to fret over the writing process — that’s creativity at work. It’s another thing to fret when it comes time to consider the world *out there.* The world out there begins with one person: the agent (unless you’re self-publishing).

So many questions: Is she still my agent after so long? Will she like the book? If not, what do I do then? Does she remember me? How come I didn’t receive an agency Christmas card last year? Specifically, what will she make of my storytelling choices? Do I already have a strike against me since I’m not writing the most popular thing — the first-person, domestic suspense-thriller?

First things, first: contact her. Seemed simple enough. Nothing formal, because that’s not the way I roll. More like, Hey, Agent, remember me? Remember that book I was telling you about a long time ago? Like that, with the addition of a decent summary of the story.

Sad face emoji here — — because when it comes to the *out there* stuff, I dread coming up with what a friend calls the “logline” more than anything else in this pesky business. I can write an entire novel, but developing a pithy summary description? HAH!

I give you my friend’s formula, which I shamelessly stole and now pass on to you. Actually, with a little research, I discovered that the formula comes from a writing book called SAVE THE CAT by Blake Snyder. It’s a screenwriting book, but fiction writers use it, too.

On the verge of STASIS = DEATH,
a flawed hero BREAKS INTO 2;
but when MIDPOINT happens,
they must learn the THEME STATED
before ALL IS LOST.

Uh-huh — what? Since I haven’t read the book (yet?), I did a little research, and this is the way I think about it:

STATIS = DEATH: Protagonist’s beginning state. Basically, she must already have problems in her life.BREAK IN 2: Protagonist makes a choice and enters into a new, unforeseen journey.MIDPOINT: Significant plot event that changes things. An obstacle, a twist, etc.THEME STATED: Related to protagonist’s internal arc. How they must change.ALL IS LOST: The stakes.

Here’s a made-up example:

Bankrupt and homeless, an investigative journalist returns to her hometown to bury her mother, who committed suicide, and pick up the pieces of her shattered life; but when a freak flood unearths a skeleton in the basement, she realizes she must face long-buried secrets in her family’s past and learn to forgive herself before she becomes the next “suicide” in the family.

Hopefully you get what I’m illustrating. Having a formula helped me write my logline. I came up with:

Reeling from her headmistress mother’s murder, troubled trauma survivor Tessa Alexander returns to the one place she vowed never to see again—fog-enshrouded, cursed Greyvale Academy for Girls—to find answers; but when a childhood friend is found dead on campus, the lines between past and present blur, and ever-more-fragile Tessa realizes that she must face her own truth to discover why vengeance came calling to slay her mother and make Tessa its next victim.

That’s one long-ass sentence, but it works well enough. I could never write a logline before I begin writing, but I can see how attempting it while writing might help me figure out where my story needs work. For example, if I can’t figure out what the theme is, I probably need to beef up my character’s internal story arc. If I don’t have a good midpoint event, it probably means I have a saggy middle.

In the end, I sent this:

Gothic-inspired story reminiscent of Tana French’s THE SECRET PLACE and Carol Goodman’s THE LAKE OF DEAD LANGUAGES: Reeling from her headmistress mother’s murder, troubled trauma survivor Tessa Alexander returns to the one place she’d vowed never to see again—fog-enshrouded, cursed Greyvale Academy for Girls—to find answers; but when a childhood friend is found dead on campus, the lines between past and present blur, and ever-more-fragile Tessa realizes that she must face her own truth to discover why vengeance came calling to slay her mother and make Tessa its next victim. Retribution comes in many forms, and sometimes Greyvale girls have the most to hide.

The point was to provide Agent with as much information as possible, succinctly, and excite her interest. Including comparable books (or, comps) is always handy for agents. That last sentence isn’t needed. I just liked it.

The good news is that Agent responded the same day(!!). I’m apparently still on her roster, and she looks forward to reading the manuscript when I’m ready. Revision, here I come!

Ghost Story or Scary Story?

Eric Witchey

During the late spring and early summer Samhain story submission season, my attention occasionally turns to the WordCrafters-sponsored Ghost Story Weekend. Every year near the holiday most people call Halloween, I am the writer in residence responsible for helping a group of writers bring stories, usually ghost stories, into the world. When my mind goes to that space, I often find myself considering the differences in types of ghost stories because every year someone shows up with the erroneous idea that a ghost story must also be a horror story. That’s normal because most people, including writers who don’t normally work in the cloth of horror or ghosts think ghost stories are a subgenre of horror.

I do not.

Horror is a genre that includes the reader pleasure of fear survived (sometimes only by the reader). A ghost story can be horror, but it does not need to be. Ghosts can be spirit guides, like Marley in A Christmas Carol, or the “revered ancestors” that appear in the tales of many of the world’s cultures. Ghosts can be random encounters that influence a character’s thoughts and motivations. Ghosts can be comedic, like Nearly Headless Nick in the Harry Potter series. Ghosts can also be terrifying, like the spirit in the film The Ring.

As near as I can tell, ghosts stories exist in almost all genres and cultures. Consequently, I think of ghosts as story characters who have the special attribute of being dead and disembodied. We wouldn’t want other undead folk to be subsets of ghost.

However, many readers, non-ghost writers, and non-horror writers think of the phrase “ghost story” as synonymous with “scary story” or even “horror story.”

So, what makes a story scary?

I will unilaterally and quite arbitrarily dismiss “splatter horror” from my considerations. Scary stories that rely on splatter don’t feel scary to me. They feel like weak attempts to shock. Shock is not nearly as delicious as fear. Shock is too quick. Shock is too empty and leaves too quickly without adding to the experience of life and thought. Shock deadens emotion rather than enhancing emotion and helping the reader to gain understanding from it. In textual story, if the lead-up to the horrific end of a character is done well, the actual event need not be displayed. It can be implied or represented symbolically to allow the reader to provide their inferred and projected level of gore, which will be much more potent to them than a detailed representation of anatomical disassembly. If the event must be displayed, the lead-up was probably not done well.

Fear, however, includes delicious development of anxiety into nervous anticipation, which turns into agitation, near fight-flight, and then glorious release. Once the release happens, fear lingers as a deep memory that comes back to us over and over to support new thoughts and considerations.

When I was a child, we went to my grandmother’s house every year to watch The Wizard of Oz on her color TV. That was a big deal when I was between three and eight. The green-faced wicked witch and her flying monkeys scared me so much that I hid behind a sofa clutching my teddy bear when she appeared. None-the-less, it was a highlight of my year. Even more than being a good boy for Santa, I was a good boy for Wizard of Oz night. I needed to see it again and again. I wanted to be scared. I anticipated heading to Grandma’s house for weeks before we actually went. Once there, I psyched myself into a state of near fight-flight so that the moment when the witch appeared would launch me across the living room and behind the sofa.

Early life adrenaline addiction? Maybe. Who cares? It was one of the great pleasures of childhood—being safe and terrified at the same time.

So, what does it take to make a good scary story?

Safety. The reader must be reading in a context where they feel safe. If people read scary stories in the middle of combat zones, it is because they want to return to a place where they felt safe enough to read scary stories. Yes, I know that sounds a bit nuts, but talk to a few combat soldiers who read horror as an escape while on duty and it starts to make sense.

Sympathetic Identification. The characterization of the main character allows the reader to feel like they are the character or they care for the character as an analog for self, family, or tribe. My favorite for this idea is Odd Thomas in the Dean Koontz series. Odd is a fry cook who has lost the love of his life, Stormy Llewellyn. Oh, and he sees supernatural entities. We can all feel his pride in blue collar work, his simple and loyal love, and the creepy sense of his separation from the people around him that goes with seeing ominous things that are real but just beyond the perception of others. Isn’t that all of us?

Anticipation. A good scary story lets the reader look forward to being scared. The anticipation isn’t just about expecting to be shocked. That’s not enough. The anticipation is about knowing we are going to be surprised and then being surprised by what surprises us. Which leads to the next element.

Benign Violation Theory. BVT is at work when we are surprised by what surprises us. This is the same thing that makes good jokes work. We see or hear the setup and expect a particular ending even though we know it’s a joke and won’t end the way we expect. Then, the ending of the joke goes a very different way that is both a surprise and makes perfect sense. The joke gives us the pleasure of being surprised by what surprises us. In a joke, the surprise releases anticipation tension as laughter. In a scary story, the surprise releases tension as a jump, a scream, a gasp, an expletive, or hiding behind the sofa. The easiest form of BVT to see is the paraprosdokian, which starts out with a phrase, an idiom, or a cliché that we recognize. That start sets up an expectation. Then, another phrase continues the thought by bending the meaning in a new direction that surprises and makes new sense of the whole.

Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like honey.“He is a modest man who has much to be modest about.” Winston ChurchillThat woman has the heart of Mother Theresa. I’m going to skip her dinner party.

Culture. The last, and perhaps the most important element, of a good scary story is culture. Scary stories exist in the context of the culture in which they are told. They offer pleasurable fear experiences that validate or refute our beliefs about our culture. A ghost does not make a story scary. The ghost, or the actions of the ghost, must mean something that either validates the reader’s beliefs about the virtues of the culture (a heroic scary story) or/and criticizes the culture in a way that allows the reader to understand and believe in the object of criticism. It is the combination of the other factors combined with the reader’s perception of the significance of the cultural meaning of the ghost character that makes a story with a ghost in it scary.

And that brings us back to Nearly Headless Nick, who haunts a middle school. Also, consider Moaning Myrtle, who haunts the same school’s bathroom. Nearly Headless Nick is an outcast from the headless hunt because his head hasn’t quite come off. He is a metaphor for the alienated life of a middle school student—like the others but not quite. Myrtle, who haunts the bathroom, is the epitome of the bullying victim. They represent experiences we can all identify with. They are not scary at all. However, they do enhance the emotional power of scary moments in the story because we can understand them and feel for them. Their circumstances echo the living middle-school students’ failures to belong and the damage of prejudicial bullying presented in the larger story.

Consider the same idea of ghost and meaning in culture and apply it to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Who is the Headless Horseman and what does he represent? In that scary ghost story, Ichabod is a schoolteacher—an intellectual. What does that make the black Hessian horseman on a shadowy steed carrying his flaming jack-o-lantern head? A case can be made for that story being about the battle between the rational and the irrational—between acceptance of or rejection of reason in community and culture.

Consider variations on folktale ghost stories like La Llorona. What does her story represent? She is the lost woman or girl who, depending on the region and roots of the tale, lost a child or died tragically near the place where she manifests—usually water or a bridge. Sometimes, her story is about warning people against dangerous circumstances. In that case, she is a tale of tragic love and transcendent compassion for others. Sometimes, her story is about luring strangers into her arms, in which case the story is a commentary on lonely death, temptation, and the weaknesses of the living heart. Sometimes, she is a child stealer, which makes her story a cautionary tale of loneliness, loss, and the consequences of failed judgment and respect for the warnings of elders.

A ghost story need not be a scary story, but the ghost will be central to the tale and have an effect on character arc. A horror story can have ghosts, both scary and benign. A mainstream tale of justice can include a ghost, as can a fantasy series. Consider The Lovely Bones, Hamlet, and Harry Potter. When we set out to write a ghost story, will it also be scary? When we set out to write a scary story, does it need a ghost? Will we write a story that is both? Will we write a scary story that is also funny or a funny ghost story about trying to be scary? These are things to think about before and during composition and revision.

-End-

The D Word

by Christina Lay

Discipline. Okay, there, I’ve said it. Most creative types I know recoil at the word. Discipline invokes loveless toil, stern teachers with knuckle-whacking rulers, and a sort of relentless grind that seems the very antithesis of the artistic flow. However, I’ll let you in on a secret. The artistic flow is much, much easier to achieve if one has discipline. It’s a drag, I know, but sitting around waiting for the muse to twiddle on her magical flute is about the most effective way there is to get nothing done.

This is actually not news for anyone who’s written a novel, completed a painting, or mastered just about any craft, but I thought it would be worth talking about again in this era of day pajamas, and an endless stream of Blursdays.

I’ll go ahead and admit right now that when my boss informed me that we wouldn’t be coming in to the office for at least a month (ha, ha), I didn’t not gasp in dismay.  I have spent most of my working life yearning and scheming for more time to write, so the prospect of an entire shiny month of setting my own schedule, of not doing the commute or the nine-to-five zombie shuffle, didn’t sound too bad. I mean, if we had to live through a pandemic, why not do it at home, where the cats and the readily accessible tea and the home computer surrounded by a tsunami of novel notes reside?

Those first weeks at home were quite productive in the writing department.  With no boss tapping her foot waiting for me to arrive at the joyless cubicle, I could continue my morning writing session for as long as I wanted. As long as I got my work done in a timely fashion, who cared when I did it? I wrote many words, and also completed a lot of tasks at home.

But there’s this thing about living through a pandemic, not to mention riots, wildfires, assaults on the nation’s capitol, endless attempts to subvert democracy, etcetera. It’s all very distracting. So naturally, first thing in the morning, instead of bringing up my WIP, I would log on to the Washington Post for my daily cuppa morning Horror and Outrage.  Long, long ago, I trained myself to NOT CHECK MY EMAIL before beginning to write. However, it only takes one pandemic to up-end decades of practice and yes, Discipline, and so the doomscrolling began to eat away at that hard won habit.

I mentioned that I completed a lot of tasks at home as well. The thing about tasks-at-home is that there is no end to them. So now, with my flexible schedule, there was no reason not to abandon the computer mid-day, mid-week, in order to pull weeds or clean out closets.  But the combination of writing as long as I wanted and getting tasks done was starting to encroach on my work productivity, so…maybe I could take a morning off from writing now and again, now that I had so much more time to play with? 

And just why was I still getting up at 6:00 AM anyway? There was no need to set the alarm anymore. I could get up whenever, as long as I got my work done in a timely fashion yadda yadda yadda. The sense of urgency continued to fade, time no longer a precious commodity.

Inevitably the doomscrolling and the task completing and the worrying about the possible end of the world and the drudgery of sitting in one damn place all day and the work files piled on top of my novel notes like salt upon the Earth and the mysteriously shrinking day (possibly due to not setting the alarm anymore), well…you get the idea. My decades long, hard-won habit of getting up early and writing every morning began to erode. Discipline snuck out the window to go chase butterflies.

I have always grudgingly suspected that my ongoing, high-level of productivity was due to the fact that I was forced by my jobs to maintain a schedule, to consciously prioritize writing, and to show up at the page no matter what, and lo and behold, this suspicion has been confirmed. Sure, the no-matter-what has never been quite so obnoxious, but cancerdidn’t slow me down, for crying out loud. What exactly happened here? I’ll tell you what. What happened was a many-pronged assault on my belief in and dedication to the idea of discipline. It was not deliberate. It was not abrupt. But it did happen, and now I’m dealing with the consequences.

In this case, the consequences are a whole lotta words with no point, and then no words, and then the dismay that I failed to register back when the world came to a halt in March of 2020. I have faced the most evil of phrases: Writer’s Block, and recognized it for what it truly is; the loss of a carefully honed habit.  How do I regain the habit?  Discipline. Yuck.

The mental toll of the Year from Hell has made it difficult for me to commit to any one of my many projects, so I’ve decided to begin a thorough edit and rewrite of an epic fantasy I completed about six years ago and then abandoned. 

Reading, editing, note taking, those things I can do. And I will do them, every morning, no matter what. I will set the alarm, ignore the email, and show up. I will work through the rewrite and hopefully at the end of it, my discipline will have been firmly reestablished and the agony of editing will spur me on to write new fiction again.  This isn’t like a switch that can be flipped. I have a lot of bad habits that need purging and a mushy life that needs firming up. Perhaps you find your self in the same mushy circumstances?

If you don’t have a monster rewrite to work on, journaling, timed-writing, word games; anything that gets your hand moving and your pandemic-fried brain looking the other way will do, as long as you do it, regularly, on schedule, no matter what. Remember, you’re forming a habit that will serve you well no matter what the world throws at us next.

Ekphrasis!

Ekphrastic, or ekphrasis, a Greek word meaning “a literary description of, or commentary on, a visual work of art.” Generating ekphrastic response is the current project at the Maryhill Musuem of Art.  The museum invites patrons to view art from its collections, and then to write a poem in response to their experience of the art.  The museum will then share those poems for further response. The goal of the project is to create and connect inspiration to visual works of art. They call it art inspired by art. 

What a beautiful concept. It reminds me of the power of the wonderful, living connection between us and everything.  When we pay attention to something, we notice the multi-layered, complex response evoked by it within us.  Whether it is a person, a painting, a story, a poem, or a drop of water on a leaf, when we “see” it we are touched in some way, and we respond.  It is the power to evoke response that we value in art, in writing, in relationship.  How we respond is what makes us uniquely human.

As writers, we aim to generate response in readers, to evoke feelings and images that allow them to see and experience the world in ways they could not have imagined on their own.  The more evocative our writing is, the more deeply we touch the reader. Think of books and art that still live with you, and have become part of you.

As an example, one of Rodin’s sculptural works, exhibited in The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, generated a profound response in me.  Although there were many works of art on display, I kept returning to one particular piece by Rodin; the study of the head of a man about to be hanged, part of the “Burghers of Calais”.   I stood there with this piece of art for over an hour, stunned, weeping, Hauntingly beautiful, sad, and powerful, it affected in an unexpected way..  

I tried my hand at creating an ekprastic poem on this piece. What art lives within you?

Death,

unexpected

unjust

untimely

has come for me.

On the steps of the gallows

time compresses

to a sigh

love unexpressed

affairs left undone

I don’t want to leave

Not today.

Writing Like My Garden Grows

By Lisa Alber

Mimulus, an annual that survived the winter.

It’s gardening season again. Every year I meet the garden all over again, saying hello to the new hosta and lily shoots, cheering the cosmos sprouts coming up from seeds. There’s always a few happy surprises, like the checkered lilies that bloomed after a late season transplant last year and annuals that somehow made it through the winter. There’s always new challenges. Mourning the hibiscus that didn’t make it, grunting at the forget-me-nots and bluebells that want to take over everything, railing against slugs that decimated two delphiniums. It’s an ever-changing palette of colors, textures, and layers from year to year, and month to month during the season.

The thing about gardening, for me, is that it’s all about process. It’s a long-winded process. I’ll never get to the end. I started with the basics: clearing the yard of overgrown everything, junkyard detritus, a giant diseased cedar (sadly), and weeds. Learning as I went — the craft of it, you might say. Every year I challenge myself a little more. And every year, my garden grows more beautiful. The process brings to mind a fantastic word:

I’m coddiwompling my way forward with the garden the way I coddiwomple each new novel and my writing career in general. With each story, I meet the writing process all over again. Saying hello to the fresh-faced characters; railing against plot points that won’t make themselves clear; challenging myself with story structure or point of view. Hopefully, my craft is improving the way my garden grows more beautiful.

If nothing else, gardening illustrates how the process can be an end in itself. The garden doesn’t need to achieve anything. I always hope for lots of colorful flowers through the season, and that’s about it. I can’t control what happens, just like I can’t control my characters sometimes. Gotta pivot. Re-think. Transplant.

Checkered lily.

I have a new motto: gardening is transplanting. I plant new flowers every year, and sometimes I don’t place them correctly. They don’t thrive. They need more sun, or less. So, every year, I transplant, and every year there’s more to move around because I’m always buying new plants. And there’s a domino effect too. Last week I transplanted two languishing hydrangea to a sunnier spot where a clerodendrum (a.k.a. peanut butter tree) had died. In one of the empty hydrangea spots I transplanted a bleeding heart that wasn’t happy because it was getting too much sun.

The process takes patience and stamina. Just like revision. I have a motto about that too: writing is revision. Anyone can write a first draft, but revision is where the real work happens to make a story its best (publishable!) self. I change one aspect of a story and the domino effect rolls through every chapter. Recently, I realized my character Tessa’s internal arc wasn’t strong enough. I amped it up. Had to revise nearly every chapter to accommodate the pivot I made.

Bluebell

Transplanting is a revision, and revision — re-seeing — makes the garden more glorious. Sometimes it takes a few attempts to get it right, but eventually I figure out the best plant placement just like I figure out my vague plots. It’s not that I don’t get grumpy sometimes. Sometimes I don’t want to dig a hole in hard earth. BUT: The work itself, the slog, turns into flow. And flow is good. Once I get going (procrastination is forever an issue, whether transplanting or writing), with my hands in the soil or my mind inside a character’s head, I can go for awhile, and I’m content at the end of the session. In the garden, it’s easy to see my progress and so satisfying. In the work-in-progress, I can see that I made it through some page count. This is something even if I don’t know whether the revisions are any good.

But then, when I transplant, I don’t know whether the plant is going to thrive either. And if it doesn’t, I try another spot. And so it goes.

Bleeding heart and forget-me-nots

I almost wrote a blog post about languishing. A languishing plant, a languishing manuscript or career, many of us languishing during the pandemic. I found this article helpful. (The NYT piece is better, but it’s blocked, at least for me.)

But the garden isn’t languishing. The garden is buoyant and fully alive. And I’m hopeful for my writing too.

Gifts to Humanity, by Eric Witchey

Students Teaching

I recently read a short story written by one of my former students.

Thank you, Erin Popelka. https://losangelesreview.org/cadence-rain-erin-popelka/

The piece had all the hallmarks of a gift to humanity—what I call “a story that heals.” After reading it, I found myself wishing I had written a tale that simple, that powerful, and that clearly realized. Amazed at how she represented two characters’ lives in contrast to one another in a way that implied depth of experience, emotion, and momentary connection in both, I wiped the tears from my eyes and realized how full my heart was because I had been lucky enough to touch the heart and mind that created the piece. Of course, I wrote to her and complimented the beauty and power of the story, but I fear I did not do my experience justice. Days later, I’m haunted by the tale and by the moment of insight that accompanied it.

The author responded to my compliment with some embarrassment and a statement I’ve heard before from students who have published, “I couldn’t have done it without your excellent teaching.”

Perhaps my teaching saved her some time in learning, but I’ve been teaching writing in some form or another for over 30 years. Experience has shown me that I’m occasionally blessed to touch students who have the heart, the mind, and the discipline to succeed in creating stories that contribute to the healing of the world. However, experience has also shown me that the best I can claim is to have saved them a little time in their journey. They do, with or without me, find the skills they need in order to bring their hearts to words and their words to readers.

In this, nothing has changed since so long ago when I was thrashing about with pen and page trying to make sense of all the conflicting information found in the world of teachers and how-to articles. Looking back, I see that teachers I thought were wrong were only wrong for me in the moment. Teachers I thought were brilliant were only brilliant for me in the moment.

One teacher I knew believed I would be great. Another made a point of telling me how hopeless my dream was and that I should quit and save myself the pain of a life wasted. Both were wrong. Both were right. A life is a life. I make my choices and walk my path.

Stubborn or foolish or both or neither, my obsession to find and know my heart well enough to bring it to the page in a way that is useful to others pushed me on to the next teacher, the next, and the next—and eventually to teaching. Now, I see writers like my student, who has become my friend, and perspective lets me see that they, too, move from teacher to teacher to teacher in search of the next piece of craft they need and the perspectives that let them look back and see the value of the pieces they couldn’t know they needed at the time.

The motivational drivers vary from writer to writer, but I like to think that no matter what drives them they share a commonality of heart, mind, and discipline combined.

Certainly, people can live rich, full lives without putting pen to page, but do writers have a choice? The above-mentioned teacher who told me I should quit I later learned told all his students that. He actively tried to get them to quit. He believed he did the ones who quit a favor because they would have quit eventually anyway, so he thought he was giving them more life to live well. He believed the ones who did not quit were the ones who had no choice and would pursue writing in spite of any obstacles.

Looking back, I see his tactic as cruel, but I can’t help also see the tiny grain of truth in it for a subset of students. However, his tactic did not admit to students whose sensitivity required nurturing, whose insight might, if nurtured, result in powerful tales that can heal. How many of his students were just one insult away from personal despair because they lived with sensitivity that would have brought power and insight to their stories had they been given reasons to continue? How many healing stories were lost to that personally righteous belief? While I cannot know the number, I can say it is high. Few things are as fragile as creativity in a culture that demands conformity to ideals of acquisitive success.

The piece of his truth I embrace is that writers who are driven by heart, mind, and desire to serve the reader often succeed both in spite of and because of their obstacles. The truth I infer from all the writers I have known and teachers I have had is that cruel tactics have no place in the nurturing of creators who have probably grown through and out of their fair share of cruelty.

The heart and drive to learn the craft well enough to serve and heal readers does not come from soft lives lived in isolation from pain. It comes from fear, from loss, from anger, and from abandonment. It comes from compassion that pushes the writer to create sense and growth from chaos and pain. A published tale like the one this essay began with is born of the need to create the compassion that saves others from the need for defenses that too many of us carry in our culture.

The teacher’s role is to touch, nurture, and provide useful, executable technique to the student who will, with or without that particular teacher, find their path to expression and healing others. The teacher’s best hope is to save the student time and unnecessary pain on that path.

So, with a great deal of pride and a fair amount of healthy jealousy of students who have surpassed my skills, I thank all my students. You have all made me a better writer. You have all helped me in my healing. You have all challenged me to deeper understanding.

-End-

Here is the link to the story that sparked this essay. Thank you, Erin Popelka. https://losangelesreview.org/cadence-rain-erin-popelka/

A Sunday Date with “The Artist’s Way” by Cheryl Owen Wilson

“My creative mojo is gone, scattered like autumn leaves.  I am bare and exposed.”

“The pandemic has eaten all I had to offer in my creative life .”

How many of you creatives felt, still feel, or have had friends express this sentiment? Are you, as a friend recently confessed, “I’m stuck in quicksand and can’t find a way out.”

In the last year, every morning when I open my email there are several offers for classes or get togethers via zoom to connect with fellow artists/writers.  Normally I would have signed up for them all.  Yet during this past year and into the new year I couldn’t manage to commit to any of them.  The uncertainty of our world had left me feeling so claustrophobic, any class, weekly meeting, etc. seemed too overwhelming to consider. 

Then a writing acquaintance offered up weekly meetings with an old friend (a book)—The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron.  The book is a 12-chapter course in discovering and recovering your creative self.  I read the book when it was published back in 1992.  Since that initial reading it has traveled with me from home to home, but never again did I crack its spine.  My acquaintance’s plan was each week we’d read a chapter and on Sunday she would facilitate a zoom meeting lasting no more than an hour.  She gathered creatives from all across the US and as far away as the Netherlands.  It felt like a good start to getting my writing mojo back, but I also allowed myself the grace of bowing out if I felt it too restrictive. 

So I began my Sunday zoom meetings and to my surprise I missed only one of the thirteen sessions, and was sad to see it coming to an end.  I’m not going to attempt to incapsulate the many pearls of wisdom I garnered from rereading the book, but I will attempt to explain a few of the practices I recognized I’d subconsciously continued years after my first reading.

Before I begin I should address the use of the word God throughout the book.  If the word God carries for you a negative connotation, as it did for a few in our Sunday group—they explained the word immediately gave them a picture of an angry male figure passing down judgement on their every move–Cameron provides an acronym of her intent in using the word—”GOD equals Good, Orderly, Direction.  The word is useful shorthand, but so is Goddess, Mind, Universe, Source and Higher Power.”      

Let’s begin with positive affirmations or quotes as the book is riddle with them.  My favorite quote is: Affirmations are like prescriptions for certain aspects of yourself you want to change—Jerry Frankhauser. 

Positive affirmations or Quotes—I’ve collected positive affirmations/quotes for longer than I can remember and had no recollection of when I began this practice.  They hang like jewels from fairy lights in my artist studio, they’re on my bathroom mirror, I give them as gifts,  there is always a deck of cards with inspirational quotes on my bedside table.  I’m now certain my love of these small tidbits of positive energy came from my first read of The Artist’s Way.

Personalizing affirmations is also used in many of the tasks Cameron gives the reader to do at the end of each chapter.  In one such task we were to write:  Treating Myself Like a Precious Object Will Make Me Strong.  We were then instructed to place the personal affirmation in a place where we’d see it daily.  This particular task, I affirmations, elicited much discussion and proved to be one of the major catalysts on the road to creative recovery in our group.  Here are a few more Cameron listed: 

            I am a talented person.

            I have a right to be an artist.

            I now accept hope.

            I now share my creativity more openly.

I created my own I affirmation:  I Will Live with Intention in All that I Do

Morning Pages—Another practice I’d forgotten I began with my first read of this book. You put pen or pencil to paper and write.  No keyboards please.  There is a kinetic benefit to this daily stream-of-consciousness writing.   I may not accomplish this on a daily basis, and have even stopped writing these pages off and on over the years.  But when I do I find the time for morning pages I’ve found my creative mind is more easily activated.   Many paintings have been born while writing morning pages, as well as story lines and interesting characters.

“Show up at the page.  Use the page to rest, to dream, to try.” 

The Artist’s Date—The artist’s date is a weekly practice that ties nicely with my above-mentioned affirmation involving intention.  You’re to take yourself on a date with the intention of quietly observing.  Think of it as a sacred space, a time for healing solitude meant just for you.  It can be as simple as taking a brief walk, or cooking a favorite or new recipe, visiting a museum, or embracing silence while staring up at a starry night sky.  Many of my artist’s dates have been simply sitting in quiet meditation. 

Another of my own affirmations:  Life itself is Meant to be an Artist’s Date

Collage/Vision Board—Since I’m a visual artist as well as a writer I’ve found this exercise beneficial in many areas.  Collect at least ten magazines.  Then working within a ten-to-twenty-minute time frame tear out anything that speaks to you—words, pictures, etc., or if no magazines are available for you to rip up, print off similar things you’ve kept in files on your computer.  You then glue, staple or tape the images onto a canvas or board creating your own unique visual collage.  Look at it through the eyes of your past, present, future, and beyond to your dreams.  Display your collage in a place where you can see it daily.  I’ve created these vision boards not just for my own life’s vision, but also for characters in my stories, or for the actual stories themselves.  

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.”—Chekhov

Through the thirteen weeks of meeting and discussing The Artist’s Way, did I recover my mojo?  Of course I did.  But I also found so much more.  As one participant said, “It feels so good to be able to talk to people who really get what I’m feeling.”

In closing, many in the Sunday Artist’s Way meetings have decided to perhaps begin again.  This time we’re thinking of meeting and reading a chapter a month as opposed to weekly.  This will allow us to delve more deeply into each chapter and tasks.  For myself, I know I will not let years pass before I once again pick up The Artist’s Way.  I wonder in a year or two how many daily/weekly practices I’ll be continuing from this second reading?

Do you have something you can go to, a book, a daily routine, to recover your creative mojo?