Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 63
August 7, 2012
21 Plot Shapes Link
Several people have asked me to post this when I had it done. I apologize in advance for my drawing skills, but this is what I used at my WIFYR class this year to talk about plot in different variations.
August 6, 2012
Manly Men Read Princess Books
http://www.wifyr.com/blog/2012/04/09/princess-books-for-manly-men/
Monday Book Recs--Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater and Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith
The Scorpio Races is about a mystical island where there are water horses, fierce, violent animals that bite and kill humans and each other. But they are also tameable to a certain extent, and each year on the island, tourists come to watch the races where the islanders earn huge prize money by competing against each other to ride horses or water horses to the finish line, despite the draw of the ocean itself and the battles between the vying horses. Against this is an interesting romance between Sean Kendrick and Puck Connolly, who will be competing against each other in the races. As the novel progresses, the backstory of each of these characters makes them more and more interesting, as do the sacrifices they make for others and the risks they take to get what they want. Puck wants to save her family home after her parents have died and she seems to be the only one of her siblings who still cares about keeping them together. Sean wants to have freedom and the water horse he loves. Of course, neither one can have everything they want, but the ending was both surprising and satisfying, as all the best endings are. I also believed in the romance, which I must say is a rare thing lately, despite the fact that romance in YA has become nearly de rigeur.
This is a story about a girl who has fallen in love with the wrong guy--and doesn't know it. Amidst all the YA romances about "true love" and the angst of does he love me/does he not love me, this is a novel about Zan and Joy, who used to be boyfriend/girlfriend. But Zan has graduated and moved on. And Joy, well, hasn't. She's still in love, and she is trying to get back together with a guy who has no interest in her. She goes on a road trip with a friend to tell Zan how she feels about him and she discovers more about him than she wishes she knew. She also discovers a lot about herself, and about the guy who really cares for her. I liked the Mormon background here, a light touch, but never embarrassed about the reality of the culture. It felt like it was distinct, but also universal--which is the way a setting should always be. Loved this book!
July 28, 2012
Race report: Layton Tri 2012
This is a really weird race run by a really weird guy. First of all, it’s a pool triathlon in an outdoor “wave” pool. That’s not the weirdest part, though. The really weird part is that you do a mini-sprint (300 yd swim 5.5 mile bike and 1.55 mile run) and then you run from transition back into the water to swim and start the whole race all over again.
The guy who runs the race is not an athlete himself. He made one crack about how next year he’d be almost as “old” as the guys on the medals podium, and how that was “really old.” Dude, they all look better than you do. He is getting better than a few years ago, but he takes a long time to spit things out. This makes me tend to tune him out, even if he might be giving useful information. He made one big mistake explaining the rules about passing on the bike. He said that if you can’t pass in 15 seconds, you have to “fall back.” In fact, once you have moved into the passing zone, you cannot fall back. You must pass, no matter how much it costs you or you will face a time penalty. This is to encourage people not to move too close unless they can really pass.
I did the whole race in just my swimsuit again, and as far as I could tell, was the only person who chose to do that. I would be more comfortable running and biking in shorts, but I can’t find a pair of tri shorts that don’t gape just a little in the pool when I kick off the wall, and that makes me just a bit slower. I don’t think the swim suit makes me slower on a little race like this. It just makes me uglier. Even though I am in good shape, there are parts of my body I would prefer not to show off. Ah, well.
The bike is so short and so full of turns that it is almost more like a track race than a road race. I have aerobars and an aero helmet, so I used them but I always wonder how much time that saves me in a race where you go a maximum of a half mile before turning.
I felt like I was running lousy, but it turns out that every one of my splits was faster this year than 2 years ago when I last did this race. That hasn’t happened to me in a long, long time. I suspected my transition times would be faster, because I have since gone sockless and leave my bike shoes on my pedals for faster transitions. I’m not sure there’s much left for me to do to get faster in transition. There’s still lots of room in other areas.
One of the disadvantages of this type of race is that because it is a staggered start, you have no idea what your real placement is. I crossed the finish line in second overall for women, but a woman who is a slightly slower swimmer but faster runner came in behind me and beat me. It might have made a difference to both of us to see the competition.
However, this is a great race for beginners. You get lots of practice doing transitions and it’s so low-key there’s little stress. I thought that the race organizer has done a good job of responding to problems in the past and this year, I didn’t have any problems passing people in the water or being passed. A couple of guys played leapfrog with me because I was faster on swim and transition and they were faster on bike and run, but the course was much less congested than it has been in the past.
This year, I have been killing the bike in almost every race I’ve done. As I try to analyze why that is, I have to give credit to 2 factors:
1—My computrainer, which promises to drop 20 minutes off an Ironman bike time. Being able to control power/watts really does help. You can dial in every workout perfectly.
2—I spent a lot of hours on it this winter doing easy aerobic miles and I’m reaping the reward now. Clearly I need to do this for my run next winter.
Final results: 3rd place overall women 1:14.39
July 26, 2012
Friday Tri: Lessons from Echo Triathlon 2012
I have finally coaxed a runner friend of mine who had a serious injury into trying out triathlon. I’m not saying there are no injuries in triathlon, but they don’t tend to be the same overuse injuries, because you’re doing 3 different sports. Anyway, she did a swim sprint race with me in May and last weekend was her first attempt at an open water race.
What I learned from watching my friend:
1. Open water swimming is not like pool swimming. At all. I suppose I had forgotten this, after so many years of switching back and forth easily. I try to do an open water swim once a week in the summer, and I’m very comfortable in the open water. I do occasionally make sighting mistakes, but not often. When I took my friend out to swim in the open water to practice a few days before the race, she kept going wildly off course. I told her she needed to lift her head out of the water and sight every 10 strokes, not every 100 as she thought she should.
2. Race conditions change so much in triathlon that times are not as transferrable as in running races. My friend had set her goal at a 2:45 time, based on looking at times from the year before. But the race itself turned out to be very different than the previous years I have done it. For one thing, the water was so low that we had to run 1/2 mile after the swim to get on our bikes. That meant longer transition time by about 3 minutes. Also, there was a significant wind on the bike, which meant that bike times were a bit slower, maybe just a minute or two, but it added up. It also meant that you were slightly more fatigued on the run, so both of us ran about 50 minutes for a 10k, which isn’t great. But adding up those changes, her time was surprisingly like her goal.
3. You can’t judge your performance based on your placement. This race was super well attended. There were people from all over the West who attended and a lot of them were better than me. I could count about 5 women I knew were better than me just by looking at the start list. But I don’t know everyone, of course. I ended up being 12th overall among the women, which isn’t as well as I usually do. Still, I was very pleased with how well I did. I got a PR on the swim and the bike. My run suffered because I was maybe too excited on the bike, but I was happy to take 2nd place in my age group.
4. You do the best in the sport you do the most. Whatever your default is, you’re going to shine at that. For me, it’s the bike. I realize it when I watch myself choose what to do on an easy day. I don’t run. I love swimming, and I would swim if I had easier access to a pool. But since I don’t, it’s the bike. Hurts my joints less and I don’t know, I just like it better. My husband’s default is the run, where he does better than on the bike, which he doesn’t do as much of. I don’t know that I should change this, but I realize that the default exists.
5. Helpful people are not always helpful. There were some nice guys who wanted to pump up my tires for me before the race. Professional bike shop guys and all, but they ended up deflating my tire accidentally and pulling off my stem. They were going to replace my tube entirely, then realized they didn’t have a replacement because my tires are the slightly smaller 650s. I have to admit, any advice they gave me was tainted by the fact that they didn’t notice that immediately and didn’t mess up. I wasted a good 20 minutes because of this mistake, and wished I hadn’t. It ended up costing me some time in transition because I didn’t go through my normal walk through of transition to make sure I could find my bike easily.
July 25, 2012
Writing Wednesday: 10 Ways to Beat Writer's Block
Start typing the phone book (Cynthia Leitich-Smith). Eventually you will think of something better to type.
Start a new novel.
Take a few days off.
Give yourself different seasons to write, a revision season, a drafting season, and a conference/promotional season.
Think of athletes who have been over-trained. What do you need to do to rest up and get ready for another season?
Try writing by hand for a while.
Give yourself permission to write badly.
Write a book that no one will ever publish. Write a book for yourself.
Type in a first line from someone else's novel and go from there.
Give yourself permission to have writer's block.
July 23, 2012
Monday Book Recs--Carol Lynch Williams' Waiting and Miles From Ordinary
Waiting by Carol Lynch Williams
Warning: This book made me cry.
Losing an older brother while you are both still in your teens is bad enough, but for London, her grief is compounded by guilt, by social isolation from friends who don't want to talk about it, and her parents' dysfunction. London tries to make new friends, but she ends up dating two guys at the same time, one her old boyfriend and one the hot older brother of her new best friend. London's feelings of shame and bewilderment about how she can do this when she feels it is wrong, to me felt spot on. She is in a train wreck of a life and things just keep getting worse. What her mother does at the end of the book ripped my heart out. As always with Williams, the language here is spare, lyrical, and authentic. I liked the backstory of years spent traveling as missionaries, and the faint hint of Mormonism.
Miles From Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams
Warning: This book made me angry.
I get angry when I read books (even though I know they are fiction) about kids whose parents are dysfunctional and for whom other adults are the enemy, rather than friends. Of course, Lacey is just a kid whose view of the world has been formed by her mother's distorted vision. The laws seem to prevent anyone from helping her unless her mother is proven to be a danger to her own or her daughter's physical health. The mother isn't the evil character here, and in fact, Williams does a great job of making me feel sympathy for her, as well. She's been long messed up by her father's weird fanatical twist on Christianity. It's as if there are two teens in this book, and both of them need saving. But Lacey has to do most of the work herself. First, she has to figure out that her life isn't ordinary and that it's time for her to demand something better for herself. Then she has to figure out who to ask for help. And finally, she has to fight her own feelings of sympathy for her mother in order to push her away and accept that her life is her own now and no one else's. Not as easy read, and it will linger in your heart the way a great book always does.
July 20, 2012
Friday Tri: Chrissie Wellington
I think Chrissie Wellington, the current champion of Ironman, is awesome. Here are a few reasons why:
She competes with the men. She has been the second off the bike, including the guys. She often is in the top ten overall. She has run the fastest marathon, beating all of the guys, before.
She is always smiling. Even when she is in terrific pain. And it's not a fake smile, either. It's a smile because she is doing what she wants to do, and knows it, even when it's hard.
She finished last years World Championship with her smallest margin ever. That's because she had a terrible bike accident two weeks before the race. One week before the race, she had to be lifted out of the pool by her coach, because she couldn't swim more than one length. She spent Wednesday before the race in the hospital, getting more antibiotics and getting her burned legs cleaned medically. She stood in the water on the startline and didn't know if she would be able to finish the swim, all by itself. She was slower than she had ever been, and ended up being down 20 minutes by the end of the bike, her specialty. But she brought it back in the run because she knew how to endure pain. She talks about that race as being a gift, because she was finally able to say that she had given everything she possibly could to a race and that was something she had never been sure of before.
Lance Armstrong talks about her “chicking” him in Ironman.
She struggled for years with an eating disorder that was brought on in part because of the belief that if she were thinner, she would be able to be better in sport. It was only after she recovered from this and began eating well that she was able to become a professional athlete.
She ran her first marathon ever without a watch, and was surprised she finished in about 3:03.
Her life changed completely when she won her first World Championship because she was a complete unknown. (She was literally ironing on sponsor labels the morning of the race because she was so new to this.) She had to deal with losing her coach and trying to reinvent herself. She had to figure out why she wanted to win and what she was going to do with her platform.
She worked for the British Civil Service for years in other countries and has important things to say about why throwing money at causes isn't helping. We need to do something else.
She comes back after she has showered and eaten and volunteers to hand out medals to other Ironman finishers. She stays until midnight every time.
Her nickname as a kid was “Muppet” because she is so clumsy. Her family still calls her Muppet because she is more accident prone than normal people. Not what you'd expect of an athlete.
She is taking a year off at the height of her career because she needs to and she's willing to accept that is what she needs, even if it isn't convenient for her sponsors and others.
Her first Ironman, she showed up in a wetsuit that was miles too big and sank. She DNF'd about 2 minutes into the swim. Her whole family was there, watching her. As a result, they didn't come to her first World Championship win. They didn't know what she could do.
Chrissie has a book out right now called “Life Without Limits” which I think is a great book club pick. It's really not about triathlon as much as it is about, as the title says, life without limits, giving up your preconceived notions of what you are going to do and how you are going to succeed.
July 19, 2012
How to Be Happy
A few years ago, when I was deep in a depression, I remember my husband saying to me that he wished I was as happy at home as I was when we went out. This made me SO angry. I thought what he meant was that he wanted me to fake being happy all the time, which was what I did when I was in public. I was EXCELLENT at faking being happy, it turns out. Almost no one could tell that I wasn't happy. A few people who really knew what was going on did, but I guess I've spent most of my life faking a lot of social interactions and mostly other people don't look beyond the surface. They all thought that I was doing so great. I was an example to them, it seemed, of how to move on from a terrible tragedy. Ha!
The idea that I should do this faking all the time, however, was the most horrifying thing I could imagine. First of all, it took enormous effort. I would spend hours in advance, psyching myself up and then planning out different scenarios that might unfold, so that I could passably fake through them. Worse than that, though, was the sense that no one knew who I really was, that I was wearing this shell over my real self and that other people could not penetrate it, did not want to penetrate it to see the real hurting person inside. They WANTED me to be happy so that they didn't have to deal with my pain. It was simply easier for them not to see it or deal with it or feel bad about it or wonder if at some point they might feel that same kind of pain. Almost every social interaction I had was poisoned by this pretense of happiness, because I resented--and then hated--the ease with which other people seemed to accept this persona. I began to think of myself as a kind of robot of happiness and other people were also robots. All human interaction began to feel fake to me. I could see the formulas in it all, and I was very distanced from it.
It took me a long time to come to my own more real happiness. I realize now that when my husband said he wished I was happy at home as I was when we went out, he didn't mean he wanted me to fake being happy all the time. He wanted me to actually BE happy all the time. But figuring out what actually made me happy and then taking the steps to hold tight to the happiness, to allow myself to insist on being happy, and then to stop feeling guilty when I was happy--that took a lot of hard work. I get it now when people say that happiness is a choice. They don't mean the kind of choice where it just blinks on. They mean choosing to reach for the happiness, and choosing to hold it tight to your heart and not let it be taken away.
Happiness for me turns out to mean spending time watching TV with my kids, going on long walks with my husband, racing in triathlon, writing things that are just for me, going out to lunch with friends, taking myself out to lunch if I feel like it for no reason at all, celebrating every tiny little success either with an ice cream cone or a dinner out, saying no to events that have made me feel bad in the past, turning off the news, giving myself permission to fail, watching youtube videos, rewatching obsessively at times movies that I love, going to church on my own terms, asking for things that I actually want and making sure I get them instead of gifts I don't want, telling people around me what I need in blunt terms, physical embraces or simple touches from family members, taking a bath instead of a shower, getting the flavor of ice cream or gatorade or gu that I want, making the dinner I want sometimes even if no one else likes it, going shopping for something trivial and silly that I want anyway, and lots of other things.
The process of figuring out what makes you happy is a long one. I don't keep a happiness journal per se, but I can see one might be useful. For me, I make a list at the end of the day of three things that made me happy. This helps me remember the things that really matter to me. I am constantly surprised when I make this list of the things that don't end up on the list and the things that do. I thought that cleaning and shopping would never be there, but everyone once in a while, I really take pleasure in those tasks. I thought that writing would always be on the list, but somedays it's a drag and other days a revelation. My family is almost always on the list.
I'm revisiting this topic today because of a TED talk I saw here by Jane McGonigal, a gamer:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life.html
By the way, I absolutely agree with her frustration over the cultural prejudice that games are a waste of time. This language is almost identical to the language against book reading in the late 1700s when it became popular as books became priced such that everyone could own one.
Another interesting link is this list of Top 5 regrets of the dying, which McGonigal says are exactly opposite of the 5 realizations of those who experience post-traumatic growth. Those 5 are:
1. My priorities have changed--I'm not afraid to do what makes me happy.
2. I feel closer to my friends and family.
3. I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.
4. I have a new sense of meaning and purpose.
5. I am better able to focus on my goals and dreams.
For a long time, I felt frustrated when people would talk about how a tragedy was a gift, that certain kinds of growth can only come through horror. I'm not certain I am there yet. I think growth can come in many different ways, and given the choice, any moment of any day, I would go back and change the tragedy and give up everything I learned from it to not go through what I did. I also think that the pressure of those around someone who has gone through a tragedy to be over it and learn those lessons is enormous and often oppressive. The lessons don't come to you. Sometimes they feel forced on you, and not in a pleasant way.
So if you are going through a tragedy and haven't come to any lessons yet, don't feel rushed to get there. I think the reason that the regrets of the dying and the lessons of those who come out past a trauma are the same is because you do die. You've been through death and it takes a long, long time to be alive again. Give yourself that time. As I said, the process of figuring out how to be happy isn't a simple or easy or fast one. It's a survival mechanism, in a way. If you're going to have to be alive, you're going to have to figure out a way that it isn't pure misery. It feels sometimes like this is an added burden that you don't want. Believe me, I get it. Don't take up that burden until you are ready. But when you are ready, look around for what you really want and insist on it. Insist to yourself and insist to others on the goal of happiness. And then figure out how to get there.
July 18, 2012
Writing Wednesday: 15 Ways to See Your Manuscript Differently
Try using a different font.
Read your manuscript aloud.
Make a synopsis of your manuscript.
Make physical cards of each scene. Try reshuffling them in a different order.
Read your manuscript backwards, last scene first.
Open a new document and try rewriting the first chapter without looking at your previous draft.
Tell your story to someone who has never heard you talk about it before.
Sketch your story out in scenes like a movie. What is working? What isn't?
Print out your document like a book and have it bound. Then look through it again.
Pretend to send it into an editor or agent. Suddenly you will see all the flaws.
Write a list of 10 different ways to start the novel, or to end it.
Change all the character names.
Write what happens after the novel is over.
Write about your character's childhood nightmares. Or anything that isn't related to the story itself as you have framed it.
Write an editorial letter to yourself.
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