Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 251
June 2, 2011
Hidden Kids and Found Steampunk
I went back to the beginning on the current project, and I think it's a good sign that I still like it. I'm finding things to fix and a lot to edit, but that's just part of the process. I'm forcing myself to work in small doses so I don't get so caught up in the story that I just read and stop editing.
A couple of random thoughts ...
After thinking my way through Star Wars for writing post examples, something occurred to me (that was only tangentially related to my post). I love Obi-Wan, but he did the worst job ever of hiding a secret baby from his psycho father. He gave the kid his father's last name and took him to his father's home planet to live with his father's stepbrother, then he kept his own last name to live nearby and keep an eye on the kid. If he really wanted to keep the kid hidden and safe, he'd have changed his own name to the Star Wars universe version of "John Smith," given the kid a similarly nondescript name, and then he'd have taken the kid to some world where neither he nor Anakin had ever been, given some story about being a widower, and raised the kid himself in total obscurity, but possibly with some Jedi training so he'd know how to use his abilities properly. Most of the events in The Empire Strikes Back wouldn't have happened if Luke's name hadn't been "Skywalker" and Darth Vader hadn't had a reason to have any interest in some random rebel pilot. That's a plot issue I can't eradicate by ignoring the prequels.
On a brighter note, I've found my fun steampunk. I'd read the Hungry Cities books by Philip Reeve, which were good but which kind of got dark and had the underlying darkness of taking place in a grim, post-apocalyptic world. But he has another series that's more of a purely fun steampunk adventure. I managed to get the second book in the series (I'm not even sure the library had the first), but they seem to be self-contained. The first book is Larklight, but I read Starcross. They seem to be aimed at a younger readership (they're even illustrated), but they're still pretty fun. Now I want something like that but aimed at an older audience so I can get a little more psychological depth along with the fun adventures. I'll discuss it in more detail in next week's book report.
A couple of random thoughts ...
After thinking my way through Star Wars for writing post examples, something occurred to me (that was only tangentially related to my post). I love Obi-Wan, but he did the worst job ever of hiding a secret baby from his psycho father. He gave the kid his father's last name and took him to his father's home planet to live with his father's stepbrother, then he kept his own last name to live nearby and keep an eye on the kid. If he really wanted to keep the kid hidden and safe, he'd have changed his own name to the Star Wars universe version of "John Smith," given the kid a similarly nondescript name, and then he'd have taken the kid to some world where neither he nor Anakin had ever been, given some story about being a widower, and raised the kid himself in total obscurity, but possibly with some Jedi training so he'd know how to use his abilities properly. Most of the events in The Empire Strikes Back wouldn't have happened if Luke's name hadn't been "Skywalker" and Darth Vader hadn't had a reason to have any interest in some random rebel pilot. That's a plot issue I can't eradicate by ignoring the prequels.
On a brighter note, I've found my fun steampunk. I'd read the Hungry Cities books by Philip Reeve, which were good but which kind of got dark and had the underlying darkness of taking place in a grim, post-apocalyptic world. But he has another series that's more of a purely fun steampunk adventure. I managed to get the second book in the series (I'm not even sure the library had the first), but they seem to be self-contained. The first book is Larklight, but I read Starcross. They seem to be aimed at a younger readership (they're even illustrated), but they're still pretty fun. Now I want something like that but aimed at an older audience so I can get a little more psychological depth along with the fun adventures. I'll discuss it in more detail in next week's book report.
June 1, 2011
Conflict
After taking a week off, I'm back with another writing topic. This one came to mind as I was revising a book and realized one of the things I need to work on.
Conflict is at the heart of fiction. Without conflict, your story isn't going to be very interesting. You need conflict to have something for your characters to overcome. Would you want to read a story about someone who wanted something and then went out and got it without any struggle or without overcoming any obstacles? Conflict also creates tension, and tension is what keeps people turning pages.
Conflict in a fictional sense doesn't necessarily mean fighting. It just means that two forces in a story or scene are in opposition. I remember from high school English class that they talked about the various forms of conflict. There was man vs. man, man vs. God (or the supernatural), man vs. nature (or the environment) and man vs. himself. The conflict can be on the story level, where the source of conflict is the enemy or antagonist. But then within the story there can be micro conflicts that may exist for just a moment. Every scene needs some kind of conflict in it, even if that conflict isn't tied directly to the major story conflict.
A scene could involve a confrontation with the forces of the enemy. But it could also involve a struggle against other forces to accomplish a step toward achieving the story goal -- that's where your man vs. nature or the environment conflict could come in. There can be conflict between allies who have different opinions of what should be done to reach the story goal or there can be personality conflicts between people who agree on what to do.
Then there's internal conflict, the man vs. himself conflict. The hero can be torn about what he should do. He can have mixed feelings about the story goal, where he knows what he needs to do but isn't crazy about having to do it or about what it will take to achieve his goal. He can have self doubt, where he suspects he doesn't have what it takes to get the job done. He can be uncertain about his allies without actually saying or doing anything to bring himself into conflict with them. These doubts and conflicts can be momentary, where he maybe has a rough night or a bad day and then overcomes it to move forward.
All these micro conflicts help keep the tension high and move the story forward, even when things are going well at the macro level. The hero may achieve a step toward the story goal, but at the same time, he may feel internal doubts or come into conflict with his allies.
For examples, I'll turn to my usual source: Star Wars. The big-picture story conflict is between the rebel forces, with whom our hero Luke becomes involved, and the forces of the Empire. That's how the movie starts, with a battle between an Imperial ship and a Rebel ship. That conflict gets personalized in a confrontation between Darth Vader and Princess Leia. R2-D2 and C-3PO fight over what they should do when they escape the battle, before they get captured by the Jawas (who might fall into the category of environmental conflict). Meanwhile, Luke is disagreeing with his uncle about his future and his chores for the day, then he can't get R2-D2 to cooperate and give him the full message from the princess. He gets into a fight with the Sand People, then has some internal conflict when he learns that his father isn't who he thought he was and Obi-Wan wants him to go with him on his mission. There's conflict with Stormtroopers, people in the bar and Han Solo. Luke even gets some supernatural conflict when he can't seem to make the Force work for him. Later, there's conflict with the trash compactor and the monster who lives there, some disagreement between Han and the princess on how to do things, and more conflict with Imperial forces, with yet more conflict with Han. All this is before the big, final confrontation with the Death Star. Most of the conflict and tension in the story isn't directly between our heroes and the enemy. A lot of it is tension among the good guys. There's also internal conflict as Luke struggles to come to terms with what he's learning about himself and with the decisions he has to make about his life, plus Han being torn between his need to take care of his own problems and the urges from his deeply buried better nature to get involved in the cause.
If conflict is a problem, it may help to analyze each scene to determine what the scene protagonist's goal for that scene is -- and the scene protagonist may not necessarily be the book's hero, and the scene goal may not necessarily be related to the story goal. Then figure out what opposes the scene protagonist, what gets in the way of him achieving the scene goal -- and something should, or the scene won't be very interesting. That something can be internal, if the scene protagonist maybe doesn't really want to do the thing he knows he has to do or if he has doubts about it. If there's something in the scene that's essential for the plot but there's no conflict, then maybe that event or discovery should happen in another scene that has conflict. That's generally a better solution that creating a conflict out of thin air just to have conflict in the scene.
Conflict is at the heart of fiction. Without conflict, your story isn't going to be very interesting. You need conflict to have something for your characters to overcome. Would you want to read a story about someone who wanted something and then went out and got it without any struggle or without overcoming any obstacles? Conflict also creates tension, and tension is what keeps people turning pages.
Conflict in a fictional sense doesn't necessarily mean fighting. It just means that two forces in a story or scene are in opposition. I remember from high school English class that they talked about the various forms of conflict. There was man vs. man, man vs. God (or the supernatural), man vs. nature (or the environment) and man vs. himself. The conflict can be on the story level, where the source of conflict is the enemy or antagonist. But then within the story there can be micro conflicts that may exist for just a moment. Every scene needs some kind of conflict in it, even if that conflict isn't tied directly to the major story conflict.
A scene could involve a confrontation with the forces of the enemy. But it could also involve a struggle against other forces to accomplish a step toward achieving the story goal -- that's where your man vs. nature or the environment conflict could come in. There can be conflict between allies who have different opinions of what should be done to reach the story goal or there can be personality conflicts between people who agree on what to do.
Then there's internal conflict, the man vs. himself conflict. The hero can be torn about what he should do. He can have mixed feelings about the story goal, where he knows what he needs to do but isn't crazy about having to do it or about what it will take to achieve his goal. He can have self doubt, where he suspects he doesn't have what it takes to get the job done. He can be uncertain about his allies without actually saying or doing anything to bring himself into conflict with them. These doubts and conflicts can be momentary, where he maybe has a rough night or a bad day and then overcomes it to move forward.
All these micro conflicts help keep the tension high and move the story forward, even when things are going well at the macro level. The hero may achieve a step toward the story goal, but at the same time, he may feel internal doubts or come into conflict with his allies.
For examples, I'll turn to my usual source: Star Wars. The big-picture story conflict is between the rebel forces, with whom our hero Luke becomes involved, and the forces of the Empire. That's how the movie starts, with a battle between an Imperial ship and a Rebel ship. That conflict gets personalized in a confrontation between Darth Vader and Princess Leia. R2-D2 and C-3PO fight over what they should do when they escape the battle, before they get captured by the Jawas (who might fall into the category of environmental conflict). Meanwhile, Luke is disagreeing with his uncle about his future and his chores for the day, then he can't get R2-D2 to cooperate and give him the full message from the princess. He gets into a fight with the Sand People, then has some internal conflict when he learns that his father isn't who he thought he was and Obi-Wan wants him to go with him on his mission. There's conflict with Stormtroopers, people in the bar and Han Solo. Luke even gets some supernatural conflict when he can't seem to make the Force work for him. Later, there's conflict with the trash compactor and the monster who lives there, some disagreement between Han and the princess on how to do things, and more conflict with Imperial forces, with yet more conflict with Han. All this is before the big, final confrontation with the Death Star. Most of the conflict and tension in the story isn't directly between our heroes and the enemy. A lot of it is tension among the good guys. There's also internal conflict as Luke struggles to come to terms with what he's learning about himself and with the decisions he has to make about his life, plus Han being torn between his need to take care of his own problems and the urges from his deeply buried better nature to get involved in the cause.
If conflict is a problem, it may help to analyze each scene to determine what the scene protagonist's goal for that scene is -- and the scene protagonist may not necessarily be the book's hero, and the scene goal may not necessarily be related to the story goal. Then figure out what opposes the scene protagonist, what gets in the way of him achieving the scene goal -- and something should, or the scene won't be very interesting. That something can be internal, if the scene protagonist maybe doesn't really want to do the thing he knows he has to do or if he has doubts about it. If there's something in the scene that's essential for the plot but there's no conflict, then maybe that event or discovery should happen in another scene that has conflict. That's generally a better solution that creating a conflict out of thin air just to have conflict in the scene.
May 31, 2011
The Power of Imagination
I gave myself a long holiday weekend so I could visit my parents. I spent Memorial Day weekend watching old war movies with my dad. There was also much eating and reading. So it was basically the usual weekend with my parents, though there usually aren't so many old war movies running back-to-back on cable.
I was reading my stash of children's/young adult books from the library, and I was reminded of one of the hazards of seeking books in the children's section: what I call the "Power of Imagination" books. These are the ones where the cover talks about a kid escaping some situation by traveling into another world or running off to have great adventures -- and then you read the book and find out that the adventures only come about through "the power of imagination" and the kid doesn't actually do anything. I suppose it's not the fault of the book/author because the books themselves seldom pretend to be anything but what they are -- there's no fake-out in the story where you're led to believe it's anything but imagination. It's a marketing thing. I guess they're afraid that a book about someone imagining doing cool stuff doesn't sound that interesting, so the cover copy makes it sound like the cool stuff is really happening. Those books made me so mad as a kid because I was a huge fan of the "sucked through a portal" books where kids from our world traveled into another world and had adventures, so I'd pick up anything that sounded like that. It was such a disappointment to start reading and learn that these were only imaginary adventures. I was perfectly capable of imagining my own adventures. I didn't need to read about some kid imagining adventures.
I remember one that I particularly hated, though I don't remember the title or author. It had something to do with a boarding school, which was another one of my favorite things to read about as a kid. The cover said something about the heroine escaping the dreadful boarding school by traveling to another world with one of her classmates, and they had to learn a whole new language and eventually became princesses. I was all over that. I loved the idea of escaping school by stepping through a portal to another world. And then it turned out that they just snuck into some old attic, where they found a trunk of old dresses (because all attics in kids' books contain trunks of old clothes) and made up an imaginary world and created their own secret language. I so didn't sign up to read a book about sneaking into an attic. I wanted to go to another world!
What's really depressing, and what makes me even madder, is that these books about the magical power of imagination usually end up undermining themselves because it seldom seems that the flights of fancy have a positive effect. Usually something tragic happens because the games go too far or someone gets caught up in the game and the distraction allows something to happen, and then the imaginative kid gets humbled. I guess this is the children's book version of "literary," as the kid is usually escaping from some relevant real-world problem, and then there's the tragic ending where the child is ultimately forced to face reality and grow beyond such childish things as imagining other worlds. It's like the message is that imagination is a wonderful thing, but you have to let it go to grow up.
I would have thought I would be sophisticated enough now not to fall for that. After all, I work with the publishing industry and have done marketing writing. And yet I still managed to grab a book that sounded like a fun adventure but that turned out to be about a bedridden kid making up stories. At least this one had a happy ending and didn't turn tragic because of the kid's imagination.
I was reading my stash of children's/young adult books from the library, and I was reminded of one of the hazards of seeking books in the children's section: what I call the "Power of Imagination" books. These are the ones where the cover talks about a kid escaping some situation by traveling into another world or running off to have great adventures -- and then you read the book and find out that the adventures only come about through "the power of imagination" and the kid doesn't actually do anything. I suppose it's not the fault of the book/author because the books themselves seldom pretend to be anything but what they are -- there's no fake-out in the story where you're led to believe it's anything but imagination. It's a marketing thing. I guess they're afraid that a book about someone imagining doing cool stuff doesn't sound that interesting, so the cover copy makes it sound like the cool stuff is really happening. Those books made me so mad as a kid because I was a huge fan of the "sucked through a portal" books where kids from our world traveled into another world and had adventures, so I'd pick up anything that sounded like that. It was such a disappointment to start reading and learn that these were only imaginary adventures. I was perfectly capable of imagining my own adventures. I didn't need to read about some kid imagining adventures.
I remember one that I particularly hated, though I don't remember the title or author. It had something to do with a boarding school, which was another one of my favorite things to read about as a kid. The cover said something about the heroine escaping the dreadful boarding school by traveling to another world with one of her classmates, and they had to learn a whole new language and eventually became princesses. I was all over that. I loved the idea of escaping school by stepping through a portal to another world. And then it turned out that they just snuck into some old attic, where they found a trunk of old dresses (because all attics in kids' books contain trunks of old clothes) and made up an imaginary world and created their own secret language. I so didn't sign up to read a book about sneaking into an attic. I wanted to go to another world!
What's really depressing, and what makes me even madder, is that these books about the magical power of imagination usually end up undermining themselves because it seldom seems that the flights of fancy have a positive effect. Usually something tragic happens because the games go too far or someone gets caught up in the game and the distraction allows something to happen, and then the imaginative kid gets humbled. I guess this is the children's book version of "literary," as the kid is usually escaping from some relevant real-world problem, and then there's the tragic ending where the child is ultimately forced to face reality and grow beyond such childish things as imagining other worlds. It's like the message is that imagination is a wonderful thing, but you have to let it go to grow up.
I would have thought I would be sophisticated enough now not to fall for that. After all, I work with the publishing industry and have done marketing writing. And yet I still managed to grab a book that sounded like a fun adventure but that turned out to be about a bedridden kid making up stories. At least this one had a happy ending and didn't turn tragic because of the kid's imagination.
May 27, 2011
The Upcoming Weekend
First, a TV programming note: I know a few of my friends and my parents really enjoyed the wacky spy show Chaos, before it was abruptly pulled after three episodes. Well, it looks like they're going to show the remaining episodes during the summer. There are two episodes scheduled for Saturday night, starting at 7 Central Time on CBS. That works out well this weekend, since BBCAmerica isn't showing the new episode of Doctor Who because of the holiday weekend (I suspect they'll see the error of their ways when their ratings drop significantly for the subsequent episodes that are shown a week late, thanks to viewers who don't want to wait and who have other ways of obtaining the episodes).
I took a walk to the library this morning because it was nice and cool, and I needed the exercise even if I didn't really desperately need books and could have dropped off the books that are due over the weekend. Unfortunately, by the time I dug through my "books to look for" notebook and the library's online catalogue to find things to check out, it was no longer nice and cool, so I am now very sweaty. I resorted to checking out a lot of children's books because I just couldn't take the darkness anymore. I've been reading for market research, and it seems that everything in the genre that best fits what I'm working in is really dark, which may be a bad sign for me. I used to go to YA when I wanted something lighter, but those are now really dark, with dystopia being the big thing. It's hard to find plain old fun reading material.
What I'd love to find is some steampunk that isn't dark and depressing and that doesn't have zombies, vampires, werewolves or dark, twisted sorcerers -- something that's more pure adventure in airships, with a Jules Verne flavor. Cool gadgets, cool costumes and a feeling of adventure and possibility, with Victorian manners and a touch of romance. The closest I've found are the Scott Westerfeld books, Leviathan and Behemoth, but there's not a lot more like that. I may just have to dig out my Jules Verne books.
My Memorial Day weekend plans are simple. I'm singing for a funeral Saturday morning, then I'll be visiting the parents later in the weekend. If I'm really good, I'll finish this round of revisions on the book today, so I can then spend the weekend doing a lot of reading and relaxing.
I took a walk to the library this morning because it was nice and cool, and I needed the exercise even if I didn't really desperately need books and could have dropped off the books that are due over the weekend. Unfortunately, by the time I dug through my "books to look for" notebook and the library's online catalogue to find things to check out, it was no longer nice and cool, so I am now very sweaty. I resorted to checking out a lot of children's books because I just couldn't take the darkness anymore. I've been reading for market research, and it seems that everything in the genre that best fits what I'm working in is really dark, which may be a bad sign for me. I used to go to YA when I wanted something lighter, but those are now really dark, with dystopia being the big thing. It's hard to find plain old fun reading material.
What I'd love to find is some steampunk that isn't dark and depressing and that doesn't have zombies, vampires, werewolves or dark, twisted sorcerers -- something that's more pure adventure in airships, with a Jules Verne flavor. Cool gadgets, cool costumes and a feeling of adventure and possibility, with Victorian manners and a touch of romance. The closest I've found are the Scott Westerfeld books, Leviathan and Behemoth, but there's not a lot more like that. I may just have to dig out my Jules Verne books.
My Memorial Day weekend plans are simple. I'm singing for a funeral Saturday morning, then I'll be visiting the parents later in the weekend. If I'm really good, I'll finish this round of revisions on the book today, so I can then spend the weekend doing a lot of reading and relaxing.
May 26, 2011
A Day for Frolicking
It looks like my petunia is a casualty of the storm. I repotted the remaining bits yesterday, but today those are shriveled up and brown. It's sad because it was a thank-you gift for being a children's choir director, but I hadn't really bonded with it yet, and I do still have the decorated pot it came in, which is the part mentioning choir. It's been a bit noisy today with chainsaws, leaf blowers and other things that come into play when there's been storm damage.
The upside of a big storm is that you often get gorgeous weather in the aftermath. Today is spectacularly lovely, with warm (but not hot) temperatures and clear skies. I have work to do, and it's the kind of work that must be done at the computer, and the computer doesn't work so well outdoors (I've tried, but there's a glare on the screen), but it would be a shame to spend a day like today indoors. So, since everything on TV tonight is a rerun, I think I'll at least take a walk this afternoon and enjoy the outdoors and then work tonight. I do have at least one minor pen-and-paper task to do, so I may do some outdoor work. This is definitely a day made for frolicking. I may take a bottle of bubble soap to the park and just sit there, blowing bubbles.
And, yes, yes, I do have a bottle of bubble soap handy. Doesn't everyone?
I'm still enjoying this book. I may be in the delusional stage, but I think it's at least as good as the one I just read that's a bestseller in the same genre, and considering that it took me nearly three weeks to read the bestseller because I was more interested in the book I was working on, that I wrote and that I know the ending for, I think that's a good sign. Now, if only the publishers will agree. I think this is one that if the publishers don't get it, I may consider self-publishing online as an experiment (and to prove them wrong).
The upside of a big storm is that you often get gorgeous weather in the aftermath. Today is spectacularly lovely, with warm (but not hot) temperatures and clear skies. I have work to do, and it's the kind of work that must be done at the computer, and the computer doesn't work so well outdoors (I've tried, but there's a glare on the screen), but it would be a shame to spend a day like today indoors. So, since everything on TV tonight is a rerun, I think I'll at least take a walk this afternoon and enjoy the outdoors and then work tonight. I do have at least one minor pen-and-paper task to do, so I may do some outdoor work. This is definitely a day made for frolicking. I may take a bottle of bubble soap to the park and just sit there, blowing bubbles.
And, yes, yes, I do have a bottle of bubble soap handy. Doesn't everyone?
I'm still enjoying this book. I may be in the delusional stage, but I think it's at least as good as the one I just read that's a bestseller in the same genre, and considering that it took me nearly three weeks to read the bestseller because I was more interested in the book I was working on, that I wrote and that I know the ending for, I think that's a good sign. Now, if only the publishers will agree. I think this is one that if the publishers don't get it, I may consider self-publishing online as an experiment (and to prove them wrong).
May 25, 2011
Open Writing Question Post -- Ask Me Anything!
I had a late night last night due to wave after wave of major storms. The only damage I've noticed at my house was a petunia plant that was sheared off. My other plants were okay, and my patio furniture didn't seem to have been so much as moved, but it looks like there's some wind and hail damage in the neighborhood. Riding through storms like that isn't conducive to a restful night of sleep. I was at ballet class during the worst storm when the sirens went off, so we spent most of the class in the teachers' lounge/bathroom at the studio.
After the storms last night, and the resulting late morning and grogginess, it's a bit of a challenge to come up with a writing post, so I think I'll take a week off. My plagiarist will have to find some other source this week. Maybe I'll make it a comment post. if you have a question about writing, ask it in comments. If it's a short answer, I'll answer in comments. If not, then I'll use it as the basis for a future post.
Now I think I may take a walk to see how bad the damage in the neighborhood is. When we had the really bad storm a few years ago that ripped off roofs, I slept through it and didn't notice the damage until later in the day, so it's entirely possible that I didn't notice something major when I was driving home in a "lull" that was only intense rain without hail or a tornado.
After the storms last night, and the resulting late morning and grogginess, it's a bit of a challenge to come up with a writing post, so I think I'll take a week off. My plagiarist will have to find some other source this week. Maybe I'll make it a comment post. if you have a question about writing, ask it in comments. If it's a short answer, I'll answer in comments. If not, then I'll use it as the basis for a future post.
Now I think I may take a walk to see how bad the damage in the neighborhood is. When we had the really bad storm a few years ago that ripped off roofs, I slept through it and didn't notice the damage until later in the day, so it's entirely possible that I didn't notice something major when I was driving home in a "lull" that was only intense rain without hail or a tornado.
May 24, 2011
The Fantasy Island Experience
I made pretty good progress on the latest round of revisions. No matter how many times I've read something, I still find things that need to be changed. On the other hand, I had some things in mind that I felt like I needed to fix, and when I got to those parts, I realized that what I thought I needed to add was already there.
Lately, I've been watching syndicated cable reruns of the original CSI. I'd never really watched it before -- it was one of those shows where it had been on for years, but I didn't believe there was more than one episode because every time I managed to catch even a part of an episode, it was always the same episode -- but there are only so many times you can watch the same reruns of NCIS, and crime procedurals make some of the best background noise for house cleaning and other unpleasant tasks that require some distraction to make them palatable, so now I have a decade of episodes I haven't seen of this show.
Anyway, a few days ago I caught an episode in which they were tracking down what a murder victim had done on the night leading up to his death. They found that his boss had given him a trip to Las Vegas as a reward, so he got a nice hotel room on the company credit card. Then when he was drinking in the hotel bar, a gorgeous blonde started talking to him. She spilled her drink on him and then insisted on buying him a new (expensive, designer) outfit. Then they went to another place in her Ferrari to go shoot some pool, he got into a game with another guy at the pool hall, and won ten grand. He got to drive the Ferrari on the way back to the hotel, and the guy he'd beat at pool tried to race him in his Corvette, but the Ferrari won. It was like the ultimate vacation fantasy come true -- and that's what it turned out to be. His boss had given him the additional gift of a carefully orchestrated fantasy based on his interests, and it had all been scripted and set up. He liked to play pool and thought he was pretty good, and he was into auto racing and fast cars, so a hot girl who played pool and drove a Ferrari would have been right out of his dreams, and then winning a high-stakes game of pool and a road race made it even better. Unfortunately, the guy didn't realize it was fake, really fell for the girl, and then got himself killed when he went to threaten the guy she'd claimed was her abusive ex that she needed to escape from (letting him feel protective and chivalrous was part of the fantasy). Oops.
But that got me started thinking that it would be really cool if you could actually get that Fantasy Island experience (without the murder, of course), though I suppose it would have to be a gift for it to really work, as arranging your own fantasy would mean you knew it wasn't real, and that would take all the fun out of it. Of course, that got me started thinking about what kind of perfect, "best vacation ever!" someone could arrange for me (and no, I'm not hinting here). I don't really have any dream or fantasy that's the sort of thing that someone could arrange for me in a way that I'd believe it. I want to be a bestselling author, but I wouldn't want a fake book tour with red carpet treatment and people paid to pretend to be fans. I'm not so self-deluded as to think I could somehow luck into being a ballerina, and I'm the slow-build type when it comes to relationships, so a vacation fling wouldn't work for me because I wouldn't have time to get into a comfort zone with a man before it was time to go home.
My vacation fantasies are pretty simple. It would be cool to show up at the airport and be told, "Oops, the flight's overbooked. I guess we'll have to put you in first class." And then to show up at the hotel and be told, "Oops, the hotel's overbooked, so we'll have to give you a concierge suite with a jacuzzi and a balcony with a scenic view, and we'll send up a bottle of champagne for the inconvenience." I like traveling alone, but the one thing I dislike about it is that I hate eating in restaurants alone, so I generally miss out on a lot of the culinary opportunities of travel. I'll often just get some takeout and go back to my hotel room. So it might be nice to run into someone interesting while touring something, strike up a conversation, and then suggest that we continue the conversation over dinner. If we're going farther into fantasy territory, I love ballroom dancing, but people tend to go to dancing-like venues as couples, so if you go alone, you don't get to dance, and it might be nice to find someone to go dancing with or to go someplace just to listen to the music and be asked to dance by someone who knew what he was doing. If we're going into real Fantasy Island territory, then it would be cool to end up singing with a jazz band.
But the funny thing is, I've done all those things, and they weren't arranged (as far as I know). I got the surprise first-class upgrade when a flight back from a conference in Chicago was canceled due to mechanical problems, and instead of standing at the gate and screaming at the agents, I called the reservations number to get rebooked and was friendly and polite and demonstrated a sense of humor with the agent. I didn't even realize that he'd rebooked me onto the next flight in first class until they started calling row numbers for boarding. Unfortunately, that's a really short flight, so I didn't get to take advantage of the full first-class experience. The hotel upgrade wasn't a surprise, since it happened because I had something bad happen on a previous stay, and they said when I came back they'd upgrade me, but I did get the suite with jacuzzi, and they did send a bottle of wine (no champagne, alas). As for meeting people while touring and continuing the conversation elsewhere, I do that all the time. That's one of the reasons I like traveling alone, that I'm more open to meeting new people that way. It's mostly been lunch we end up doing, and it's usually been groups of women I fall in with instead of handsome men, but to be honest, I think I'd be a little leery of going to dinner with a man I've only just met in a strange city. I've been asked to dance when I've been listening to music in a hotel bar, though they haven't been very good dancers. And I've even sung with a jazz band. On a trip to New Orleans, I was having lunch at a patio cafe with a jazz band, and I requested a song. I think the bandleader was picking on me when he said I had to sing it, and then when I did and he realized I could really sing, he made me sit in for a while, and the audience made requests. It was more of a Dixieland band than a swanky piano trio or big band, but still, I got to be the girl singer for a jazz band in the French Quarter.
I don't know if this means that my fantasies are way too modest or that I'm just good at making my own dreams happen. Most of these things come about because I'm nice and friendly and pay attention to people. I get good service because I try to be the kind of person people want to do nice things for, and I meet interesting people and get to do cool things because I act like those people are interesting and I appreciate what they do. So I guess I don't need some big-bucks fantasy concierge service to make good things happen to me, which should mean things are less likely to go wrong and end in murder.
Lately, I've been watching syndicated cable reruns of the original CSI. I'd never really watched it before -- it was one of those shows where it had been on for years, but I didn't believe there was more than one episode because every time I managed to catch even a part of an episode, it was always the same episode -- but there are only so many times you can watch the same reruns of NCIS, and crime procedurals make some of the best background noise for house cleaning and other unpleasant tasks that require some distraction to make them palatable, so now I have a decade of episodes I haven't seen of this show.
Anyway, a few days ago I caught an episode in which they were tracking down what a murder victim had done on the night leading up to his death. They found that his boss had given him a trip to Las Vegas as a reward, so he got a nice hotel room on the company credit card. Then when he was drinking in the hotel bar, a gorgeous blonde started talking to him. She spilled her drink on him and then insisted on buying him a new (expensive, designer) outfit. Then they went to another place in her Ferrari to go shoot some pool, he got into a game with another guy at the pool hall, and won ten grand. He got to drive the Ferrari on the way back to the hotel, and the guy he'd beat at pool tried to race him in his Corvette, but the Ferrari won. It was like the ultimate vacation fantasy come true -- and that's what it turned out to be. His boss had given him the additional gift of a carefully orchestrated fantasy based on his interests, and it had all been scripted and set up. He liked to play pool and thought he was pretty good, and he was into auto racing and fast cars, so a hot girl who played pool and drove a Ferrari would have been right out of his dreams, and then winning a high-stakes game of pool and a road race made it even better. Unfortunately, the guy didn't realize it was fake, really fell for the girl, and then got himself killed when he went to threaten the guy she'd claimed was her abusive ex that she needed to escape from (letting him feel protective and chivalrous was part of the fantasy). Oops.
But that got me started thinking that it would be really cool if you could actually get that Fantasy Island experience (without the murder, of course), though I suppose it would have to be a gift for it to really work, as arranging your own fantasy would mean you knew it wasn't real, and that would take all the fun out of it. Of course, that got me started thinking about what kind of perfect, "best vacation ever!" someone could arrange for me (and no, I'm not hinting here). I don't really have any dream or fantasy that's the sort of thing that someone could arrange for me in a way that I'd believe it. I want to be a bestselling author, but I wouldn't want a fake book tour with red carpet treatment and people paid to pretend to be fans. I'm not so self-deluded as to think I could somehow luck into being a ballerina, and I'm the slow-build type when it comes to relationships, so a vacation fling wouldn't work for me because I wouldn't have time to get into a comfort zone with a man before it was time to go home.
My vacation fantasies are pretty simple. It would be cool to show up at the airport and be told, "Oops, the flight's overbooked. I guess we'll have to put you in first class." And then to show up at the hotel and be told, "Oops, the hotel's overbooked, so we'll have to give you a concierge suite with a jacuzzi and a balcony with a scenic view, and we'll send up a bottle of champagne for the inconvenience." I like traveling alone, but the one thing I dislike about it is that I hate eating in restaurants alone, so I generally miss out on a lot of the culinary opportunities of travel. I'll often just get some takeout and go back to my hotel room. So it might be nice to run into someone interesting while touring something, strike up a conversation, and then suggest that we continue the conversation over dinner. If we're going farther into fantasy territory, I love ballroom dancing, but people tend to go to dancing-like venues as couples, so if you go alone, you don't get to dance, and it might be nice to find someone to go dancing with or to go someplace just to listen to the music and be asked to dance by someone who knew what he was doing. If we're going into real Fantasy Island territory, then it would be cool to end up singing with a jazz band.
But the funny thing is, I've done all those things, and they weren't arranged (as far as I know). I got the surprise first-class upgrade when a flight back from a conference in Chicago was canceled due to mechanical problems, and instead of standing at the gate and screaming at the agents, I called the reservations number to get rebooked and was friendly and polite and demonstrated a sense of humor with the agent. I didn't even realize that he'd rebooked me onto the next flight in first class until they started calling row numbers for boarding. Unfortunately, that's a really short flight, so I didn't get to take advantage of the full first-class experience. The hotel upgrade wasn't a surprise, since it happened because I had something bad happen on a previous stay, and they said when I came back they'd upgrade me, but I did get the suite with jacuzzi, and they did send a bottle of wine (no champagne, alas). As for meeting people while touring and continuing the conversation elsewhere, I do that all the time. That's one of the reasons I like traveling alone, that I'm more open to meeting new people that way. It's mostly been lunch we end up doing, and it's usually been groups of women I fall in with instead of handsome men, but to be honest, I think I'd be a little leery of going to dinner with a man I've only just met in a strange city. I've been asked to dance when I've been listening to music in a hotel bar, though they haven't been very good dancers. And I've even sung with a jazz band. On a trip to New Orleans, I was having lunch at a patio cafe with a jazz band, and I requested a song. I think the bandleader was picking on me when he said I had to sing it, and then when I did and he realized I could really sing, he made me sit in for a while, and the audience made requests. It was more of a Dixieland band than a swanky piano trio or big band, but still, I got to be the girl singer for a jazz band in the French Quarter.
I don't know if this means that my fantasies are way too modest or that I'm just good at making my own dreams happen. Most of these things come about because I'm nice and friendly and pay attention to people. I get good service because I try to be the kind of person people want to do nice things for, and I meet interesting people and get to do cool things because I act like those people are interesting and I appreciate what they do. So I guess I don't need some big-bucks fantasy concierge service to make good things happen to me, which should mean things are less likely to go wrong and end in murder.
May 23, 2011
Sunday at the Convention Center with Joe Dalek
I spent Sunday helping with the FenCon table at the Dallas ComicCon, and it was an interesting experience. Some of the guys with our group built a full-size Dalek who also helped "staff" the table. Joe Dalek (yes, he has a Facebook page) was quite the star of the show. I never thought I'd find myself serving as Dalek staff, but I did some Dalek sitting, answered questions about where he was when he took a turn around the show floor and helped make sure the path was clear when Joe Dalek was leaving the building.
Spending the day with a Dalek behind you can be fun. Everyone who passed by wanted a photo with Joe, so we had a lot of interesting combinations. There was the girl wearing a Dalek dress and a guy doing a convincing Eleventh Doctor, but then there were also confrontations with a variety of superheroes and other characters. At one point when a uniformed Star Wars Stormtrooper was walking toward us, one of the guys at our table said, "This is definitely not the droid you're looking for." Yes, we know that a Dalek is not a robot or droid but rather an alien in armor, but that's a mistake a Stormtrooper might make. Later, they had speakers rigged so that the Dalek was going through a playlist of Dalek sounds, and as the Stormtrooper was being stopped for photos near our Dalek, the Dalek suddenly shrieked, "Daleks are superior!" I wish we'd caught that on video. Poor Joe, jealous when someone else was getting attention.
I also used the Dalek in a way I'm sure no one would ever have imagined: to reassure a small child. A family had paused near our table, and they had a little boy of about three who was in tears. Apparently, they'd encountered someone dressed as a zombie, and the kid was terrified of zombies. I told him that we were a zombie-free zone because we had a Dalek, and the zombies were afraid of Daleks. I'm not sure if it worked.
Sitting at that table was great people watching, seeing the various groups of people who went by. The demographics were incredibly diverse, and I think at least one myth about comic book fans was busted. I'd say that more than half of the males of teen age or older were there with female companionship, so they're not all social rejects who have never been touched by a woman. There were a lot of families there, and I can't count the number of times I heard a parent explain who the Daleks were to a small child. One cute moment was when a guy dressed as the Joker from Batman was nearby, and a little girl of about five approached him shyly, saying, "Mr. Joker?" He was very sweet with her and posed for a photo with her.
And now I'm back to work on the fine-tuning of the book. I got some good ideas for it over the weekend and am rethinking some scenes I thought were set in stone. This should be fun work. I also have reading to do, as I've realized it's taken me more than two weeks to read the book I'm currently reading, and that means I have a couple more books that will be due back at the library this weekend. I'm way behind on my reading goals for the month, but that's mostly been because I've been writing so much.
I'm going downstairs now because we're having a hailstorm and I have a tile roof. It sounds like I'm being bombarded with asteroids.
Spending the day with a Dalek behind you can be fun. Everyone who passed by wanted a photo with Joe, so we had a lot of interesting combinations. There was the girl wearing a Dalek dress and a guy doing a convincing Eleventh Doctor, but then there were also confrontations with a variety of superheroes and other characters. At one point when a uniformed Star Wars Stormtrooper was walking toward us, one of the guys at our table said, "This is definitely not the droid you're looking for." Yes, we know that a Dalek is not a robot or droid but rather an alien in armor, but that's a mistake a Stormtrooper might make. Later, they had speakers rigged so that the Dalek was going through a playlist of Dalek sounds, and as the Stormtrooper was being stopped for photos near our Dalek, the Dalek suddenly shrieked, "Daleks are superior!" I wish we'd caught that on video. Poor Joe, jealous when someone else was getting attention.
I also used the Dalek in a way I'm sure no one would ever have imagined: to reassure a small child. A family had paused near our table, and they had a little boy of about three who was in tears. Apparently, they'd encountered someone dressed as a zombie, and the kid was terrified of zombies. I told him that we were a zombie-free zone because we had a Dalek, and the zombies were afraid of Daleks. I'm not sure if it worked.
Sitting at that table was great people watching, seeing the various groups of people who went by. The demographics were incredibly diverse, and I think at least one myth about comic book fans was busted. I'd say that more than half of the males of teen age or older were there with female companionship, so they're not all social rejects who have never been touched by a woman. There were a lot of families there, and I can't count the number of times I heard a parent explain who the Daleks were to a small child. One cute moment was when a guy dressed as the Joker from Batman was nearby, and a little girl of about five approached him shyly, saying, "Mr. Joker?" He was very sweet with her and posed for a photo with her.
And now I'm back to work on the fine-tuning of the book. I got some good ideas for it over the weekend and am rethinking some scenes I thought were set in stone. This should be fun work. I also have reading to do, as I've realized it's taken me more than two weeks to read the book I'm currently reading, and that means I have a couple more books that will be due back at the library this weekend. I'm way behind on my reading goals for the month, but that's mostly been because I've been writing so much.
I'm going downstairs now because we're having a hailstorm and I have a tile roof. It sounds like I'm being bombarded with asteroids.
May 20, 2011
Books and Movies
If I'm really good and productive today and don't get a lot of interruptions, either self-inflicted or other-inflicted, I should finish the major surgery part of the revision process today. Then next week I can go back and finesse. I really like this book. That may sound like a no-brainer, but I usually hit a point of hating a book or doubting it, but this one I don't think I've ever hated, and I enjoy all the time I spend working on it. This is one of those books where it may be tempting to tinker with it eternally, just because I don't want to leave the world.
I hadn't planned to bother with the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, since the last one was such a disappointment. I saw it on 50 cent day at the dollar theater and still felt cheated. I mean, what was up with that ending? How depressing! But then I saw that the plot for this one is based on a Tim Powers novel, and Tim is one of my favorite convention co-panelists and a true gentleman. I'm sure there's little recognizable from his book, considering they inserted his story into the Pirates universe and used the Pirates characters, but still, I don't think I've seen a movie where a friend's name will be credited as an author, and it might be fun to go to the theater just to cheer when his name comes up in the credits.
I get asked a lot about how I feel about the fact that if they do make movies out of my books, they'll likely change a lot. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll be lucky if I even recognize my own characters. I seem to vary wildly as to how well I accept changes in favorite books when I see the movie version. It all depends on how the changes work, if the result is good and if they change the parts that are key to my enjoyment of the book. For instance, I like the Harry Potter movies. They aren't a perfect translation of the books, but I kind of put them in different universes and enjoy them equally. I've enjoyed the Narnia movies because they seem to fit the story I saw in my head when I read the books, even though they aren't a perfect match. On the other hand, I've never seen a version of Ivanhoe that I like as well as the book, possibly because I may be one of the few people who read that book and still wanted Ivanhoe and Rowena to end up together. Most movie/TV versions are very Rebecca-focused and make it out to be some kind of tragic lost love thing, while I have a fondness for childhood sweethearts. I couldn't even watch all of The Guns of Navarone. I hear that it's a good movie, but I LOVED the book, and the things that were changed the most in the translation from book to movie were the things I liked about the book. For instance, the demolitions expert played by David Niven was a laconic Texan in the book, and then they mangled to the point of non-existence the most touching and emotional character arc in the book. In those cases, I can't get past the changes, not so much because of the difference between book and movie but because the changes altered the things I liked about the book. If I'd read a book that went like the movie, I wouldn't have liked the book.
Maybe someday I'll have the clout to have some kind of creative input on movies made from my books, but granting the option now was a practical career decision. For one thing, it's given me money to live on while my publishing career is in a bit of a lull, and for another, if a movie does get made, it should give my publishing career a boost. A movie gets a lot more promotion than a book, so there will be ads on TV and in newspapers, there will be posters, there will be movie reviews, etc., and that could promote my book to audiences that haven't discovered it yet. Those sales could then lead to me getting more clout. So, yeah, I sold out, and I hope it pays off in a way that then maybe gets me a little more artistic freedom. If not, well, it's allowed me to live a couple more years without having to find a real job.
I hadn't planned to bother with the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, since the last one was such a disappointment. I saw it on 50 cent day at the dollar theater and still felt cheated. I mean, what was up with that ending? How depressing! But then I saw that the plot for this one is based on a Tim Powers novel, and Tim is one of my favorite convention co-panelists and a true gentleman. I'm sure there's little recognizable from his book, considering they inserted his story into the Pirates universe and used the Pirates characters, but still, I don't think I've seen a movie where a friend's name will be credited as an author, and it might be fun to go to the theater just to cheer when his name comes up in the credits.
I get asked a lot about how I feel about the fact that if they do make movies out of my books, they'll likely change a lot. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll be lucky if I even recognize my own characters. I seem to vary wildly as to how well I accept changes in favorite books when I see the movie version. It all depends on how the changes work, if the result is good and if they change the parts that are key to my enjoyment of the book. For instance, I like the Harry Potter movies. They aren't a perfect translation of the books, but I kind of put them in different universes and enjoy them equally. I've enjoyed the Narnia movies because they seem to fit the story I saw in my head when I read the books, even though they aren't a perfect match. On the other hand, I've never seen a version of Ivanhoe that I like as well as the book, possibly because I may be one of the few people who read that book and still wanted Ivanhoe and Rowena to end up together. Most movie/TV versions are very Rebecca-focused and make it out to be some kind of tragic lost love thing, while I have a fondness for childhood sweethearts. I couldn't even watch all of The Guns of Navarone. I hear that it's a good movie, but I LOVED the book, and the things that were changed the most in the translation from book to movie were the things I liked about the book. For instance, the demolitions expert played by David Niven was a laconic Texan in the book, and then they mangled to the point of non-existence the most touching and emotional character arc in the book. In those cases, I can't get past the changes, not so much because of the difference between book and movie but because the changes altered the things I liked about the book. If I'd read a book that went like the movie, I wouldn't have liked the book.
Maybe someday I'll have the clout to have some kind of creative input on movies made from my books, but granting the option now was a practical career decision. For one thing, it's given me money to live on while my publishing career is in a bit of a lull, and for another, if a movie does get made, it should give my publishing career a boost. A movie gets a lot more promotion than a book, so there will be ads on TV and in newspapers, there will be posters, there will be movie reviews, etc., and that could promote my book to audiences that haven't discovered it yet. Those sales could then lead to me getting more clout. So, yeah, I sold out, and I hope it pays off in a way that then maybe gets me a little more artistic freedom. If not, well, it's allowed me to live a couple more years without having to find a real job.
May 19, 2011
Rainy Day Music
I'm now totally done with children's choir for the year, after the directors' end-of-year dinner last night. And I may have had a weak moment and agreed to do it again next year. It is a commitment and a responsibility, but it's fun, and my co-director and I make a great team, so I figured that the burden/fun ratio works out in my favor. This is subject to change if my life/deadline schedule suddenly gets crazy, but it doesn't eat into my schedule that much. It's only an hour and fifteen minutes earlier than I'd have to go to choir anyway.
Besides, based on the fall TV schedules that have been announced, I won't be too busy watching TV, so I'll have more free time in the fall. There aren't really any new series that totally grab me. The magical cop show I thought sounded intriguing didn't get picked up, though there are a couple of fairy tale/fantasy type shows, which could explain why I'm suddenly getting e-mails from TV production companies asking when the option on Enchanted, Inc. expires. When it expires this summer, it looks like it may get competitive if Universal doesn't make an outright purchase.
It's a nice, cloudy day, so I'm looking forward to making a lot of progress on my rewrites. I will have to go back over something I worked on yesterday because I admitted to myself that my research was showing. There was a part that I found preachy and boring, and I wrote it, so I doubt any readers would like it, no matter how many books I read to get the information. Then there's another element I'm not sure whether or not I should keep. I think it's a nice little touch, but it has next to nothing to do with the main plot, other than possibly making things a little more personal for the heroine. I may leave it in for now, but it could go in the next draft.
Speaking of the cloudy day being good for writing, I found something odd in the music department of an electronics store. They have a pretty good stock of cheap (like, a dollar) classical CDs that are actually pretty decent and that make good background music for writing. I was looking through them, and they had some that were along the lines of "Rainy Day (Composer)." At first, I thought it was the kind of music you might listen to on a rainy day, but then the credits mentioned the name of the orchestra or performer, as well as "Mother Nature," and I realized that it was classical music with the sound of rain superimposed. Which sounds really, really strange. Why would you want to mess up the music by adding sound effects? Then again, I love the sound of rain, and I'm more productive and creative on rainy days, so I wonder if I could use something like that to simulate a rainy day. I'd need better blinds or darker curtains (or I suppose I could work in my bedroom, which stays pretty dark), and then I could play the music with the rain sounds and pretend it's a rainy day. Those CDs are really cheap, so it wouldn't be an expensive experiment. I may have to give it a try. It does still fall into the "what made someone think of this?" category for me, though.
Besides, based on the fall TV schedules that have been announced, I won't be too busy watching TV, so I'll have more free time in the fall. There aren't really any new series that totally grab me. The magical cop show I thought sounded intriguing didn't get picked up, though there are a couple of fairy tale/fantasy type shows, which could explain why I'm suddenly getting e-mails from TV production companies asking when the option on Enchanted, Inc. expires. When it expires this summer, it looks like it may get competitive if Universal doesn't make an outright purchase.
It's a nice, cloudy day, so I'm looking forward to making a lot of progress on my rewrites. I will have to go back over something I worked on yesterday because I admitted to myself that my research was showing. There was a part that I found preachy and boring, and I wrote it, so I doubt any readers would like it, no matter how many books I read to get the information. Then there's another element I'm not sure whether or not I should keep. I think it's a nice little touch, but it has next to nothing to do with the main plot, other than possibly making things a little more personal for the heroine. I may leave it in for now, but it could go in the next draft.
Speaking of the cloudy day being good for writing, I found something odd in the music department of an electronics store. They have a pretty good stock of cheap (like, a dollar) classical CDs that are actually pretty decent and that make good background music for writing. I was looking through them, and they had some that were along the lines of "Rainy Day (Composer)." At first, I thought it was the kind of music you might listen to on a rainy day, but then the credits mentioned the name of the orchestra or performer, as well as "Mother Nature," and I realized that it was classical music with the sound of rain superimposed. Which sounds really, really strange. Why would you want to mess up the music by adding sound effects? Then again, I love the sound of rain, and I'm more productive and creative on rainy days, so I wonder if I could use something like that to simulate a rainy day. I'd need better blinds or darker curtains (or I suppose I could work in my bedroom, which stays pretty dark), and then I could play the music with the rain sounds and pretend it's a rainy day. Those CDs are really cheap, so it wouldn't be an expensive experiment. I may have to give it a try. It does still fall into the "what made someone think of this?" category for me, though.
