Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 200

Announcement Part Two

Now I can make the second part of the planned announcement (from Friday's post). When my agent suggested dropping the price of books 5 and 6, since they'd been out for nearly a year, I commented that it was too bad that we couldn't drop the prices of the first four books in the series, since they've been out for years, and a lot of people won't start the series without reading the first book. My agent got in touch with Random House, and they agreed to lower the price of the e-books for the first four in the series. That price has now shown up at Amazon and Apple. Last time I checked, it wasn't yet at Barnes & Noble, and I don't know about Kobo. Because these are the Random House books, the e-books are only available in North America (but stay tuned for future news on that front), and since I'm not in control of the situation, I have no idea how long that price will last.

If you wanted to get these books on your Kindle but thought the e-book price was too high when you had the hard copy, or if you've been trying to hook friends on the series and they've balked at the price, here's your chance to get the first six books of the series, including the four Random House books, as e-books at $5.99 each. The sales rank for the first book has shot up at Amazon already, so it looks like new people may be discovering the series. Tell your friends and spread the word. I'm very excited about the fact that the publisher agreed to this, so I'd like them to see really positive results from what amounts to an experiment on their part.

I had kind of planned to start writing the new book today, but yesterday as I was playing iTunes roulette, putting it on shuffle and trying to apply each song that came up to the story or characters, I came up with something new that changes the initial approach, and now I need to think more about it. It's tough to make the judgment call and decide if this is prudence or procrastination. Am I coming up with excuses to avoid starting? But since I have no deadline and since the new idea could make things even better, I think it's prudence to do more thinking about it.

In other news, I saw Monsters University on Friday, and I thought it was really fun, possibly even better than the original. That's mostly because the theme of the movie really startled me. It's hard to talk about it without spoilers because it all came up in the way the movie ends, but I was surprised by a movie coming out of contemporary Hollywood that dared to do a couple of things that go entirely against the grain of current American culture. It's something that needs to be said but that people who dare to say it often get slapped down about. Speaking vaguely, it's about the importance of aptitude or talent to success and being willing to admit that not everyone has the same potential. It's common sense, but not something you generally see in today's kids' movies, which tend to be more about "if you want it bad enough, you should have it."

I haven't seen much discussion of the latest Pixar short that's in front of this one, but I found it to be breathtakingly lovely. I'm still not entirely sure if they started with actual photography and animated elements of it or if they managed some truly photorealistic animation. There's not a single word of dialogue, but it tells a full story, and it nearly brought me to tears over the fate of an umbrella. Bravo, Pixar. I might even get Monsters University on DVD just to get that short film.

Finally, in other sort-of book-related news, my essay on House is the current Smart Pop Books freebie, if you care to partake. This was one of the cases of my Essay Curse, in which the show I'm discussing takes a horrible turn for the worse immediately after I write an essay about it. Almost as soon as my essay was finalized, they did things on the show that negated some of my points (mostly they woobified House), and then the next season sidelined the original supporting cast, negating all my arguments. However, I think that this is a reason the show sank from that point because it was no longer doing the things I talked about with the supporting cast. The essay will be available for free reading until Sunday.

Announcement Part One

I can't really make the full announcement yet because the part that depends on someone else doing something hasn't come about, but here's a start.

You know how they usually come out with a cheaper paperback edition of a book after it's been out for about a year? That isn't really about the fact that the physical object costs less to produce. It's about the perceived value of the content. A book is put out in hardcover because the publisher thinks that people are willing to pay that price for the content and they might even want to keep it. The paperback comes out when they think they've tapped out that market and can reach new people who weren't willing to pay that price.

That's why all this "I won't pay more than $XX for an e-book because it's only an e-book" stuff is rather silly, since it's the content that holds the value. If you really want something NOW, you'll pay more for it. I'm not a fan of hardcover books, but I bought the last few Harry Potter books that way because I wanted them on release day. I'd have paid the same price even if they'd been paperback because it was about the time, not the form.

So, following that model, since it's been nearly a year since books 5 and 6 have been released, we've dropped the prices, essentially doing the "paperback" release. Much Ado About Magic and No Quest for the Wicked are now $5.99 for the e-book at most booksellers. The hard-copy price has dropped, as well, with a list price of $11.99 (though Amazon is selling for slightly less).

There's another part of this that I'll wait to announce when it actually happens. It was one of those "I won't hold my breath, but it would be nice" things to begin with.

I imagine if you're bothering to read my blog, you've already got these books. But if you or someone you know was holding off, then maybe this will tip the scales.

Drained

I have most of the new book sort of outlined. If I were trying to sell this on proposal, I wouldn't be quite ready to write a synopsis because I'd need a lot more specifics later in the story, but I think I'm close to being ready to start writing a draft. This is a sequel to a book that it took me years to really finish because it kept shifting on me, so there's probably not a lot of point to outlining really specifically up front. I'm hoping that the specifics will reveal themselves to me as I go. And then after I figure out what the book's really about, I'll have to rewrite the whole thing. There are a couple more things I want to figure out at least in a general sense, and I need to finish my soundtrack compilation, which often adjusts my outline as I come up with ideas. I'll work on that some today. Tomorrow is going to mostly be a fun/work around the house day, so I'll work Saturday. My goal is to start writing on Monday.

This kind of heavy-duty thinking is really draining. I had no energy yesterday, and I woke up exhausted this morning. I had no brainpower left by last night, so I ended up rewatching the last couple of A Game of Thrones episodes while knitting. I've finished Phase One of the current project and am ready to move on to Phase Two, which could be a bit tricky. Today's exciting task involves going to get a new patio umbrella (mine finally died for good -- my dad fixed it the last time the cable for raising and lowering it broke, but it's more than ten years old, so I think I can afford a new umbrella). At this time of year, the umbrella is critical for shading my living room windows in the morning.

There's a possibility of a big announcement tomorrow, so stay tuned. Yes, I know, I'm a terrible tease, but I like suspense and I like inflicting it on others. No, not a new book, a movie or a TV series. Actually, there will be an announcement, regardless. How big it is depends on someone else getting something done. Now, though, I must go get that umbrella because there's too much light in my house.

Brainstorming a Book

Taking that day off to deal with repairs must have worked because one of those "but WHY are they doing this?" issues I'd been struggling with suddenly resolved itself the second I sat down to work yesterday. The subconscious must have been working while I was otherwise occupied.

Since I've been brainstorming a book, I thought that would make a good writing post topic. How do you get started on a book once you have an idea? Here are some things you can do to get started. You don't necessarily have to do all of these things this way and in this order, but maybe this will spark some ideas of things you might want to try.

I usually start with a brain dump, writing down everything I know about the idea. I get most of my ideas while I'm working on something else that I need to finish, and this works as a way to clear my head so I can get back to that project I need to finish. I keep a loose-leaf idea binder, and when a new idea strikes me, I write down everything I have in my head, then put that sheet in the binder. If a new idea strikes me, I add it to the page. I often find that the idea multiplies while I do this, so that even if I start with one sentence worth of idea, I'll have at least a page when I'm done. This doesn't have to be in any kind of logical order and doesn't have to make any sense. It doesn't even have to be in complete sentences. Just scribble down whatever comes to you -- characters, plot events, scenes, settings, imagery, lines of dialogue, clothing, scents, etc.

If you're a visually oriented person, you might want to do this in mind map form. That's when you start with your initial thought in the center of the page and then draw branching spokes of related ideas radiating out from it.

If you've done the brain dump and put it aside while working on something else, when you come back to actually develop the idea into a story, review all your previous brain dump notes and write down absolutely everything else you can think of, including things you want to happen, even if you don't know how they'll happen. It will probably snowball, with ideas triggering more ideas.

At this point, I usually make a list of things I need to research. Not nit-picky, specific things, like the size of carriage wheels in 1836, but locations, career fields, related history, sociology, psychology, mythology, clothing, etc. This research is more for idea generation than for knowing specific facts. Some authors try to avoid reading novels that might be similar, but I like to at least get a sampling so I'll know what the tropes are. I like to find some of the classics of the subgenre, some of the more recent (like within the past decade) bestsellers and some of the newest books by newer authors. I tend to mix genres, so that requires reading books from both the genres I'm mixing. If I'm writing something in a historical setting, I'll read books written at that time to get a sense of the language and cultural mindset. I take notes as I read, not so much for facts (though I do keep a list of books that will be helpful when it comes time to get facts) but for ideas the books spark or concepts in the books that I think might be relevant. For a fun break in all this research, I may watch movies or TV shows that remind me in some way of the idea -- the setting, the cast, the themes, the kind of story. If my idea involves a particular culture, I may look up recipes and cook something like my characters might be eating.

After all this input, I'll do another brain dump and write down everything that's come to me. I'll review all my notes from my research and from the brain dumping, and then I'll start trying to mold it all into a novel. I'll take a story structure like the hero's journey and brainstorm what might happen at each stage. I'm not really making an outline here, just listing things that could happen at each point. Then I'll go back and see which ones I like best and look at how they could all flow together. I've written books where the plot just came to me, all at once, with almost no brainstorming required, but most of them require a bit of teasing the plot out of all those ideas. Sometimes the characters are more real to me than the plot, so I may start there and come up with what their story arcs are before I try to create a plot. Basically, I start with whatever's the clearest and then solidify it from there.

People who don't like to plot may just start writing at this point rather than doing that outlining work. That thought terrifies me, so I can't offer a lot of advice for writing that way. I have heard of "pantser" writers who, instead of outlining, make a collage, where they collect images or items that remind them of their story and put them together in a way that makes some kind of sense. I usually do a musical collage in the form of a "soundtrack" for the book, with music that reminds me in some way of the characters, story, scenes or emotions. I don't listen to this while I'm actually writing, but I may listen to it as I do other things, or I may listen to the relevant parts before writing -- say, if I associate a song with a scene or with an emotion I want to convey in a scene, I'll listen to that part of the soundtrack before I sit down to write that scene.

The big question is, when do you start actually writing? I like to hold off until I'm impatient and eager, when all this pre-writing work is just a delaying tactic and when I can see the opening scene in my head as clearly as if it were being projected in a movie theater. Then I know I'm ready. If I force myself to start, then generally that means the story isn't yet ready for prime-time.

Hot Water, Phone Fun and Living an Era

I have hot water again! It turned out to be a (relatively) simple fix that merely required the purchase of a $1.41 packet of washers and replacement of said washers. However, I've verified that I will need a new water heater when they take the old one out to rebuild the cabinet it's in because mine probably has stalactites and stalagmites built up in it. We have a lot of calcium and lime in our water. I have to be good today and get a lot of work done, though, because fixing the water heater turned into a day of hanging out and then going out to dinner, but I probably needed the mental break and the wind-down from the stress of discovering what looked like a terrible problem. We have more repairs and a movie scheduled for Friday, and there's something I can fix that I'll be taking care of when I get the parts. I think I'll wait until later in the week for that trip to Home Depot.

Now, for a discussion of recent reading. I've mostly been doing reading for researching a book, which I won't get into. I read the latest installment in Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigibles series. I really like this series but am getting a bit frustrated by how slowly the clues and developments are trickling out. Since these are written for kids, I wonder how they respond to that. At least the books are coming out at a pretty quick and steady pace, so there's not too long to wait for the next one.

For a change of pace from all the fantasy I've been reading lately, I read Sophie Kinsella's latest, I've Got Your Number. From the way it started, I thought I'd have to cringe my way through it because the set-up seemed to be pretty sit-commy and was the kind of thing where you can see the disaster coming from the way the character is acting. But once the story really got going it turned out to be rather charming, and because of the situation it was a romance that was allowed to develop more on the emotional and mental level without going straight to lust. At the beginning of the book, our heroine has lost her engagement ring (her fiance's family heirloom). She'd been at a tea in a hotel, her friends had insisted on trying on her ring (the part where I was mentally shouting "No, don't do it!"), then the fire alarm went off, and when they got back to their table, no one had the ring or knew who had it. She's given her phone number to all the hotel staff in case they find it, and then she gets mugged and has her phone stolen. Just as she's collapsing in despair, she sees a phone in a trash can in the hotel lobby. So, she picks it up and gives that number to the hotel so they can reach her. But the phone is a company-owned phone that had been issued to an executive's assistant, and she'd tossed it in the trash when she abruptly quit that day. He calls, desperate for some help from the assistant who's supposed to be at the hotel for a client event. Our heroine helps him, then begs him to let her keep using the phone until her ring is found and she can get a new phone. He grudgingly agrees, so long as she forwards any messages or e-mails that come to that phone until he can arrange to get them sent to a different number/address.

But sharing a phone means they get access to each other's lives. She notices from the kinds of messages going to the assistant for him that he's a terrible communicator who doesn't read most of his e-mail and seldom replies. She gets him out of a couple of scrapes by pointing out details he missed (it's hard not to read things when she has to open them to forward them), and that emboldens her to start replying for him, which has mixed results. In some cases, it really helps his career. In others, she misinterprets things and causes problems. Meanwhile, he helps her out of some sticky situations with her fiance and his ivory-tower academic family, feeding her info so she won't feel so inferior to them. And then he starts to worry about what's up with her fiance when she forwards a message that she thinks is for him but that he knows isn't, and it's about what her fiance is up to. Basically, it's a pretty complicated plot for a chick-lit novel, but it's fun to see the back-and-forth of the messages and the way they get to know each other that way and the way these two strangers have each other's backs. There are footnotes included in the narrative, inspired by the fiance's academic papers, and that's where a lot of the jokes are. It's a fairly lightweight book, but perfect summer reading, and the kind of thing where you find yourself staying up really late to finish it. I think it would make a charming romantic comedy movie.

Speaking of which, I watched a new-to-me romantic comedy from my stash of things I bought when the neighborhood Blockbuster closed, Dream for an Insomniac. It was essentially a 1990s time capsule, but a decent romantic comedy. Our heroine has had chronic insomnia since she was a child, and she claims that since she doesn't dream while sleeping, she's allowed to have big dreams while awake. One of those dreams is that she won't settle for anything short of extraordinary when it comes to love. She's holding out for the perfect guy who fits her ideals. And then three days before she's to move to LA with her best friend to pursue an acting career, the perfect guy shows up and takes a job at her family's coffee shop. She has three days to convince him that he's in love with her so he'll follow her to LA, otherwise she'll lose him forever. It's pretty much one of those Gen-X slacker 90s movies, where all the mildly ambitionless young people hang out in a coffee shop and have long conversations loaded with pop culture and literary references. There's even Jennifer Anniston, complete with "Rachel" hair, playing the best friend, back in the day when her Friends fame was on the upswing and she was making smart career moves in playing supporting roles in smaller films (her "leading lady" films have been pretty awful and have exposed just how limited her range is). It was actually a pretty pleasant film where I liked the main characters and wanted them to end up together, but I was mostly amused by what a period piece it was. When you're living through an era, you never think about how it will look from the future, that it will actually be an "era." It kind of made me want to pull out my Gin Blossoms and Barenaked Ladies CDs. I never really did the coffee shop thing because I don't like coffee, but I did spend a fair amount of time hanging out in Barnes & Noble coffee shops (more for the books than for the coffee). I didn't get the "slacker" thing because I worked in office jobs when I was that age during that era, and I spent my free time writing books.

One of THOSE Days, Round Whatever

I seem to be having one of those days, though it started last night when I was watering my plants and noticed a wet spot on the paving stones near the water heater cabinet. The water heater was leaking from the top, which (according to my research) means that likely some of the connections have loosened or become corroded. I shut off the water supply to stop that and a friend's coming over with tools to see about fixing it. Considering that it will soon be replaced when they rebuild that cabinet, I just need a band-aid fix, not a major repair. It seems that all the stuff I've done with the patio paid off. If I hadn't put in paving stones in front of the water heater cabinet, and if I hadn't bought flowers that I'd need to water, I might not have noticed the problem until it was catastrophic. If it had been the bed of vines, the water would have sunk in and I wouldn't have seen it, and if I hadn't had to go out and tend plants, I wouldn't have seen it. Fortunately, either by design or by poor building, the slab in that cabinet slants so the water drains away from the house, and the sheetrock in there is already shot, which is why the cabinet has to be rebuilt.

But then this morning I was awakened by a howling gust of wind and I remembered that the patio umbrella was open. I ran out to take it down before it flipped, and the cranking mechanism didn't work. I had to wrestle the open umbrella out of the stand. This happened before, and my dad fixed it by threading in a new cable, but since the umbrella is more than ten years old and since a store near me has them on sale, I think I'm going to just get a new one.

I had planned to help with a summer reading program this morning, so I was a little irked that instead I'd have to stay home and deal with the water heater (and not be able to take a good shower before going out), but it worked out because it was pouring rain at the time I'd have needed to go, and then the contractors who needed to come evaluate the cabinet who were supposed to come tomorrow showed up this morning, so I wouldn't have been home. I knew the door was bad, but it came off, hinges and all, in their hands when they opened it to get a good look. I suppose I could have gone to the reading program and then planned the water heater stuff for the afternoon, since the rain has meant this morning wasn't good for working outside, but I don't think I'd have been at my best being patient with kids who are learning to read when I was so stressed out by this stuff, and it turns out it was a good thing I was home, anyway.

In other news, the whirlwind of productivity sort of tapered off by Sunday, but before then, I managed to empty several boxes in my office. The pile looks much less formidable. I also got a good start on outlining the new book, getting into some plot specifics. I haven't decided which specifics I'm going to use, but I have some ideas to toy with. As I recall, the previous book in this possible series was also very difficult to plot, one of those where I didn't know what was really going on until midway through it, even though I thought I'd plotted it. There was a lot of backtracking and rewriting. I suspect this one will likely be the same because it's that kind of world and story. The hard part is going from big, general idea to specifics, from "and then something happens that sends them off on an adventure" to "what, exactly, happens and how does it tie into the plot, and why do they react this way instead of doing something else?"

Improving with Age

I wasn't quite as insanely productive yesterday as earlier in the week, but I did manage to get the desk drawers cleared and organized. I keep having to fight against the paralyzing perfectionist tendencies, where I come to a halt if there's something I don't know how to deal with or if it isn't just right. I've got a box for things to sort through and place when I have everything else in order and I keep reminding myself that this isn't all set in stone and done for good. Once the major surgery is done, I can go back and finesse things. I can throw things in a file for now and then later sort everything in that file and create sub-files, for instance.

There was a lot going in the "deal with later" box yesterday because one of my drawers had become a catchall for random memorabilia. There were newspaper clippings, cards from friends, photos, calendar pages, etc. A few things were handy resources I wish I'd remembered I'd had, and I need to find a place to keep them where I can use them. One really odd thing in that drawer was a collection of every expired drivers license I've had since I was 18. It was interesting to look at how I've changed over the years, and I think I've changed for the better. Up through the photo taken when I was 30, my face was kind of a featureless blob, like someone hadn't quite finished sculpting it. There were eyes, nose, mouth, but there was no sense of structure to it. It reminded me of a book I read recently in which a girl had been cursed so that people never really looked at her, and if they did, they didn't get any impression of her face. After 30, I think I finally started to show the underlying structure. It's not a weight thing, since I've stayed about the same weight since my early 20s, but it is true that you lose some fat from your face as you age (which is why those facial fillers are a huge thing in cosmetic surgery), and I guess I finally lost enough of that to show that I actually do have bones in my face. I'm sure I'll reach a point of diminishing returns when I stop improving with age and just start aging, but it's rather nice to look at a picture of my 30-year-old self or even my 22-year-old self and think of how much better I look now.

This weekend is going to be an intensive plotting retreat now that I have the main idea down. For once, I don't have any obligations or plans for the weekend, and besides, the major freeways leading from my neighborhood to just about everywhere else are going to be closed for construction for much of the weekend, which limits where I could conveniently go and limits who could conveniently come to me.

Today, though, I feel like going shopping. That happens very seldom, and I think that since I'm planning to drive to WorldCon so that I can bring all the clothes, I may as well have some fun clothes. I haven't bought new stuff in a very long time. Today will likely be mostly shoes, though. I want to browse DSW because most of the shoes I love and wear a lot are starting to fall apart, so that the only "presentable" shoes I own are either uncomfortable or don't go with a lot of my wardrobe.

On Fire in the Kitchen

I had another crazy productive day yesterday. For starters, I was on fire in the kitchen. Not literally. With my track record of kitchen mishaps (but only one emergency room visit!), it's important to make that clear because it is a possibility. I made strawberry jam, and I think that not only was it the best I've made yet, but it also went faster than ever and with less mess. There's normally jam all over the stove from filling the jars, but I only spilled a couple of drops. I did see a canning tools kit at Target today that had a jar lifter, a funnel and a magnetic lid lifter, and that might make things even better, but I'm doing pretty well without, and I don't can that often. While I had the food processor out, I shredded some zucchini and made zucchini bread. I also started playing with the slicing disc and sliced some zucchini really thin and wrapped it up in paper towels to get the moisture out. It made something kind of like zucchini chips, though not crispy all the way through. Very yummy. And while the food processor was out, I also used up the rest of a head of cabbage and made some cole slaw. Then for dinner I made a pizza, and for once it actually slid neatly off the pizza peel onto the baking stone and looked like a pizza instead of like a deformed amoeba, like it usually does, or like the last pizza I made, where the crust stuck to the peel on one side, an unintentional calzone. I even cleaned up after all that (mostly -- the dishes are washed, but the counters need scrubbing).

But wait, there's more -- I finished cleaning out the bins in the office and started on the desk drawers, where I found that I've apparently been hosting a paper clip breeding program. I may have bought two packets of paper clips, ever, but I have a drawer full of them, mostly from when I was serving as an officer in an organization back when we used mail for such things, and stuff like membership applications always came with a paper clip. I also seem to have a notepad/ memo pad/Post It pad hoarding problem. I have a whole drawer full from organizations, hotels, former clients and random swag giveaways. A lot of them are for now-defunct companies. I've started using some of them for brainstorming. Unfortunately, I'm now at the phase of cleaning where things look worse than when I started because I have to remove a lot of stuff from one place so I can put other stuff away. I'm also starting a "deal with later" box for the kinds of things that tend to paralyze me. I've found a lot of keepsake items that I don't really want to toss but that I don't need right at hand, and I've found some things I want to start using somehow. For instance, I found the folder of bulletin board material from college. We had huge bulletin boards built into our dorm rooms (probably to cut down on tape or nail holes in the walls), and I had a bunch of stuff to rotate, like the pictures from calendars, comic strips and some promotional movie stills I got when I worked at a weekly entertainment newspaper one summer. I've got a big bulletin board in my office, and maybe I should start rotating the pictures to fit what I'm working on.

And then after all that, I had a couple of major breakthroughs in my brainstorming that built on each other, so now I not only know what's really going on in the main plot, but I've tied the main plot into the major subplot in a way that really raises the stakes for all the characters. In one case, I reached for my notebook to write down another idea I had, saw the one I'd written previously and had a huge lightbulb moment.

Today hasn't been quite as productive since my water was off most of the morning (they were repairing a broken pipe in the neighborhood) and that kept me out of the kitchen. I did go to Target, the bank and the post office, so that should count for something. Now that I have something more concrete for my plot, I need to start outlining. I also have a project in mind to make use of some of those paper clips to create an additional shade for the window in the loft. It's a half-moon window that has a fan-shaped translucent shade. In the winter, all that light is wonderful and makes that a good reading spot. In the summer, it heats the whole house. I think clipping some fabric to the shade to dim the light a little might help.

Productivity!

Yesterday was remarkably productive. In addition to washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, I cleaned the bathroom, tended to the new plants (some zinnia blooms were big enough to cut and put in a vase), finished developing my new filing system and got just about everything filed, found actual desk surface, cleaned out a couple of the plastic stacking bins in my office, did some brainstorming, got new yarn and went to ballet class.

The bins almost counted as play because that seems to be where stuff from years ago -- going back to elementary school -- got stashed. I found my sixth-grade pencil box in there, complete with the "warning: opening this box could be hazardous to your health" written in my sixth-grade handwriting on the lid. I don't really know why anyone would care what was in a school pencil box, but I guess at that age you really like the idea of having secrets. Plus, we had an actual, diagnosed kleptomaniac in the class, so there was a real danger of having pens and pencils taken away. I think that once I've sorted through that box, it will be where my stash of pens will live so I don't have to hunt for the new ones I know I bought every time a pen runs out of ink. Currently in that box, in addition to a lot of pens I suspect no longer write, I found the business card for the associate dean of my college from back when I was in school, the ticket stub from the circus, a book of "coupons" a friend gave me as a Christmas gift while I was in college (that I never got around to redeeming -- I should track him down) and a dental appointment reminder card from the mid-80s. I guess I cleared out the box between sixth grade and college, but I don't think I've opened it since then. It's like a time capsule from the mid-80s. When I'm done, the bins will store surplus office supplies (the stuff I don't necessarily need right at hand, like replenishments), art/craft supplies and office toys (for that play as brainstorming thing).

My brainstorming session was rather productive. I used a tool I found while cleaning my desk, a pack of brainstorming cards I got as a prize in one of those "games will make meetings fun!" (no, no they don't) sessions while I worked at an advertising agency (ad agency people feel the need to make everything "fun!"). Each card is a thinking tactic that's generally common sense but that it doesn't hurt to be reminded of, like "look at it from another point of view" or "get rid of assumptions." They generally apply more to things like business strategy, product development or ad campaigns, but I sometimes like to apply them to book development just because forcing myself to stretch is a good idea. The idea is that you think of a question or a next step, draw a card from the deck, then apply the technique on that card to the question. Or you can do a "reading" and draw multiple cards, with each representing an aspect of the situation. I did that for the overall plot and for the main themes of the book. Then I went through each stage of the hero's journey for each of the main characters, drawing a card for each stage. Some of the results were just silly, but a couple of things came up that I hadn't even been considering and that seem to solve one of the plot issues I was having. There's a lot more work to do, but I'm starting to feel like it's all taking shape. Today I may apply some different brainstorming techniques to what I came up with yesterday.

Today, I've already made strawberry jam. Actually, it's in process. I've done the initial cooking, but then it has to cool, chill a few hours, then boil again before it goes into jars. While I have the food processor out from pureeing the berries, I may shred some zucchini and make zucchini bread. And while I'm in my creative "retreat," I think I'll watch some relevant movies and knit. I don't have choir tonight, so I get an evening off.

The Creative Spirit

The errands yesterday were moderately successful. I got some zinnias for my patio, then when Home Depot only had potting soil in huge bags, I went to Target, where they were putting the garden stuff on clearance. I'll have to hit them again to see if anything else has been marked down, but I got a "self-watering" pot to plant my new basil plant in. We'll see if that resolves my irrigation while out of town issues. I also found some flameless "candles" on clearance. The lamps on the old ceiling fan were a pretty frosted Victorian style, and I thought they'd make interesting candle holders, but I wasn't sure they were safe around direct flames. But put a flameless candle in them, and you can't tell the difference. Even better, I can use them with the ceiling fan running, which doesn't work so well with real candles. Now I need to decide where to place these. Meanwhile, since I had to be at Target, I got the ingredients I needed to try a recipe I found that I think is a lot like something my mom used to make. So there was baking, and it was close, but there was another version that I need to try to see if that one's closer. However, I have a grand idea for something utterly decadent I could make based on this recipe.

But I kind of failed on the yarn because they didn't have quite the right color and the one that I thought was closest turned out to be wrong when I got it home, and the texture when I started knitting with it was wrong. I think it will make a good blanket, and they had a free pattern at the store that looked interesting, but now I have to decide which wrong shade is closest to being right, since the yarns with the right texture were the wrong color. This may require another trip to the store, depending on which color I decide to go with. I already have some yarn of one slightly wrong color, and they sell it at the store next to the grocery store. The other slightly wrong color is only at a store that's farther away.

I was looking at all these things I'm doing that aren't writing and realized they're all forms of creativity. That's one of those The Artist's Way concepts, of indulging other kinds of creativity as a way of refilling the well and getting the emotional energy and inspiration you need for your chosen field of creativity. Knitting, baking and even playing in the garden are all ways of tapping into the creative spirit. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. But I have read studies that showed more creativity and better cognitive function immediately after a session of "play." It's also something that's effective as part of brainstorming. When you've spent time playing, you're more likely to generate ideas and be more open to wacky ideas that can be molded into something useful. I'm looking at this week as a kind of creative retreat to kick off a new book, so it's a good time to indulge in creativity even if it isn't directly book-related. And while I'm doing all this other stuff, I'm listening to music and seeing what songs strike me as potential soundtrack material, which makes me come up with ideas.

But today's activity is going to be mostly about cleaning house because it's easier to think properly in a restful environment, and because making jam (tomorrow's activity) requires a lot of clear space in the kitchen.