Julia Karr's Blog, page 8
July 9, 2013
It’s Museum Day!
The first museum I ever went to was the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago. And… to tell the truth – I often skipped school to go to the Museum. It was the coolest place ever!
Photograph taken 9 April 2006. © Jeremy Atherton, 2006
Also while living in Chicago, I spent an inordinate amount of time at the Art Institute. It is still one of my favorite museums to visit. And, if you haven’t read TRUTH – some of the action happens right in this building!
By Tripp from Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons
I have to admit, when I used to take my kids to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, I wished I was a kid, too. It looked like so much fun to explore! Fortunately, I am small enough that I was allowed to ride the carousel! (And I would’ve put a picture of the carousel in, but this pic is just too darned cool! I might have to take a drive up to Indy to see it in person!)
By HstryQT (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons
However, there is one museum I haven’t visited yet – although one of my (now-grown) daughters goes there as often as she can – and that’s the City Museum in St. Louis. She tells me it’s like the Children’s Museum but for adults! (I definitely see a road trip in my future!)
By Raymond M. Reskusich Uploaded by Kara11584 at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons
And what about this place?! The Spy Museum! Be still my heart!
Image from their Facebook page
A museum all about spies and their gadgets!
So – have you got a favorite museum? Or one you just can’t wait to visit? I’d love to hear about it!
July 8, 2013
Days like today – visualizing & daydreaming
Sometimes the fastest way to find out about a character is to step away from your writing and take a daydream break.
For me, stories come faster & make more sense if I have a good visual of my characters. There are all kinds of character analysis worksheets (as close as Google!) and those worksheets — or a few detailed paragraphs per character — are great for finding out more about who you characters are. But, the easiest and most fun way for me to get to know my characters is to “see” them.
When I wrote XVI I actually had a visual of Nina (my main character) before I even knew what her story was. She popped into my head when I was daydreaming, complete with a scene that I eventually modified and put into the book.
An easy way to see a character if you are already working on a story is to visualize a scene that they are in. See it in your head like you’re watching a movie. As you allow your mind to envision the scene, that person will take on additional dimension and depth. Perhaps you were seeing them wrong & the scene makes it clear that they are shorter than you thought, and they have brown hair and are in that string-bean gawky stage of adolescence. Or, you see the wrinkle in their eyes when they smile, the concern about their little sister as they grasp her hand, their confidence in taking the SATs, etc.
Some of the humor surrounding living with a writer mentions not disturbing them when they are gazing out the window, apparently doing nothing. But, it’s true. Those daydreaming, visualizing times are necessary in getting characters and stories to come out exactly as they should. Be sure, however, to keep pen and paper (or computer) close at hand to write down what you “see!”
Do you visualize your stories? Can you see them as movies, or scenes from movies? I’d love to know!
July 6, 2013
It’s Caturday! – #5
Frankenstein loves to lay on my journal when I’m writing – which then becomes me trying to write because he wants to be in the middle of the action. Today I opened up an old journal and he seemed to feel the surrogate was sufficient for his needs! What a cat!
Do you ever trick your cat? Is it successful? I’d love to know!
July 5, 2013
The Friday Five – Writing.
Five random thoughts about writing.
1. It’s not as EASY as you think it’s going to be — you know, getting those thoughts down in some semblance of order and understandability.
2. A first draft is NEVER going to be your best draft. Yes – I did say NEVER.
3. Once you UNDERSTAND and are OKAY with #2, editing can be fun! Like puzzle-fun! (Just don’t edit-to-death!)
4. Editing can also be HARD – especially when you have to cut the clever, witty, and beautiful lines you wrote.
5. Writing is all about telling a STORY – and although those lines you cut may be clever, witty, and beautiful – the attention they call to themselves takes away from the story you are telling.
What are your thoughts on writing today? I’d love to know! 
July 3, 2013
A blog rec, an article rec, and a phooey!
For my writer friends – this is a great blog post from Writer Unboxed, about what to ‘not’ think about when you’re writing.
And, a really interesting article about Jason Everman, a former punk rocker who changed his life completely.
And… if you are a fan of Masterpiece Mystery – specifically Inspector Lewis… last Sunday’s show caught me completely off-guard. If you haven’t watched it yet – don’t click the link. If you have, here’s a great article about it.
July 2, 2013
Ancient technology that doesn’t look so ancient!
I came across this fascinating article about an astronomical scientific instrument – the Antikythera mechanism – that was found on an ancient Roman shipwreck near Antikythera (a Greek island in the Aegean Sea) in 1901. Since its initial discovery, it has been extensively studied and models have been reconstructed using data and images from x-rays of the original.
This Youtube video is of the most recent reproduction of the mechanism – done by Michael Wright, a museum curator in London.
The video is narrated by Jo Marchant, a science author and editor. There is more information about the Antikythera mechanism at her website www.decodingtheheavens.com.
Arthur C. Clarke (in his review of Jo Marchant’s book, Decoding the Heavens) had this to say about the mechanism
Though it is more than 2,000 years old, theAntikythera Mechanism represents a level that our technology did not match until the 18th century, and must therefore rank as one of the greatest basic mechanical inventions of all time. –Arthur C. Clarke
How cool is that?!
July 1, 2013
Days like today – writing with friends.
Writing is mostly a solitary activity. Friends get together and write – but they don’t usually mesh their writing. However… my dear, incredibly creative, & inspirational friend, Sharon Vincz Andrews – artist and writer of Middle Grade fiction & poetry – and I have been writing together for years!
We write merged poetry & here’s how we do it! (w/examples! )
Usually we start by tossing back & forth a list of non-related words. She’ll say “bread” and I’ll say “asphalt.” Here’s part of a list…
common banana
actor cheese (although there are cheesie actors! lol!)
pounds canoe
table accordian
fence underwear
hammer cloud
Then we choose who gets the odd lines and the even lines (we write 8-line poems) – this alternates from poem to poem. Sometimes we’ll use our unrelated words and sometimes we won’t. To do so is really challenging & can be pretty funny at times!
The one thing we DO NOT DO is pick out a theme or even an idea for a poem. We write our lines completely independent of each other! (no talking allowed!)
When our lines are done. We merge them and see what we’ve got.
Here are a couple of examples…
1. You could have left space for me.
2. Her bling, a single shiny jewel in one ear,
3. A passing thought in the current of ‘now’
4. Ads circled in yellow decorated the classifieds.
5. Emails, notes, typed, written – scream silence.
6. New town, new streets, same life.
7. I’m the third bicycle on the left.
8. Maybe a half-cafe latte barrista for awhile…
1. Cross against the traffic & headlights flare.
2. Give me a 5-speed transmission any day.
3. Dark city streets look like another town.
4. The muscle boys don’t know ‘real’ muscle cars.
5. I brace for the familiar smell of the lobby.
6. An ounce of nostalgia can drown the most buoyant heart.
7. He catches my hand as we race to the balcony.
8. Give me today’s whatever – yesterday’s gone.
This exchange of words and ideas is always inspirational to me! And, I have found that it pretty much works with anyone who’s willing to give it a shot. It’s amazing how we can blend seemingly unrelated thoughts into poetry!
If you write with a friend – you might enjoy trying out this “priming the pump” exercise sometime. If you do – I’d love to hear about it!
June 29, 2013
It’s Caturday – #4
Baxter in the basket!
June 28, 2013
Linking to a great post!
For all my blogging writer friends… there is an excellent post on today’s WriterUnboxed! Dan Blank, the founder of http://wegrowmedia.com talks about who you are blogging for & is that really what you mean to do.
I found it very insightful and thought-provoking. Enjoy!
June 25, 2013
Sheep-eating plants? Oh my!!!
I ran across this article on Sunday. It’s pretty fascinating to think of the “intelligence” of plants.
Puya Chilensis
If you haven’t read Michael Pollen’s The Botany of Desire, I highly recommend it. It’s all about how plants want to procreate & how they go about doing it! The first chapter alone is so interesting – on the spread of apple trees. Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings – you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but not the number of apples in a seed. (I don’t know the attribution of that, sorry!)
And lastly – the singing plants at Damanhur!
