Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 54

More on Writing

I finished Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and am still working on Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.

There's a lot that I like in the Goldberg book especially. She is absolutely right when she says that you have to read a lot and write a lot, if you want to be a writer.

But both books still seem to argue that anyone can be a writer. I'm not sure. Most people in our society are literate and can put words down on paper. Does that mean they can become good writers? I've known people who worked for years on writing and never became very good. Why not? A refusal to listen to criticism, often. An unwillingness to study their craft closely. A lack of imagination. A lack of feeling for language. Maybe simply a lack of gift, whatever that may mean.

Cameron and Goldberg are both teaching people how to be saner, which is great. But the focus required to be really good at anything may not result in a well-adjusted person. I am very much a fan of sanity. I would never encourage anyone to be less sane and happy. But being good at anything requires a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of focus. It may make you a wee bit unbalanced.

For example, there is this story:

Olivia Gentile's Life List is the remarkable story of Phoebe Snetsinger, a woman trapped by her life as homemaker, who found liberation in bird watching. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, she began traveling the world, not seeking a cure, but in search of rare birds—becoming a kind of ornithologist's heroine, and living another eighteen years.

What this review (by A.M. Homes) does not mention is that Snetsinger flew the coop, left her family to chase rare birds. She was a very focused lady, whose achievements were remarkable.

She died in 1999 in a car accident in Madagascar. Her last bird, per Wikipedia, was the Red-shouldered vanga, only known to science since 1997.

Women in Comics

A twist on an old chant, "One percent is not enough, recruit, recruit, RECRUIT!" DC Comics vows to hire more women writers!

Uh... Marvel? You listening??? (Also, I could be available.)

Lyda's DiversiCon Schedule

Friday, July 29:

7:00-7:30 PM, Main Stage (Soo Line)
Scott Lohman, MC; David G. Hartwell, John Calvin Rezmerski, Lyda Morehouse, Joan Slonczewski, Eric M. Heideman; Vincent Price, C.L. Moore, in absentia

9:30-10:25 PM, Main Stage
Fiction Reading: Lyda Morehouse reads from the work of Lyda Morehouse and/or Tate Hallaway



Saturday, July 30:

1:00-1:55 PM, Main Stage
Panel: The Future is Serious Dark for 16 Year Olds
From Scott Westerfield's Uglies to Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games (even the final Harry Potter book, to some extent) there are a surprising amount of very dark futures topping bestseller lists. On a related issue: Why are so many Young Adult SF/F heroines emotionally distant murderers?

Lyda Morehouse, mod.; S.N. Arly, Naomi Kritzer, David Lenander, Michael Levy


2:00-2:55 PM Krushenko's (Room 101)
Panel: Captain America: The Comic, the Legend, the Movie
We'll take a breezy tour of the history of Timely/Marvel's early super hero icon, created (1941-)by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, then talk about the film that premiered July 22. Faithful rendition or fan fail? Did it live up to the hype, etc.? Current comic book lines we wish they'd tap for sequels.

Lyda Morehouse, mod.; Eleanor Arnason, Cynthia Booth, Roy C. Booth


3:00-3:55 PM Main Stage
Panel: YA Market Explosion
Some say science fiction hasn't produced many blockbusters in recent years, yet science fiction shows up constantly on Young Adult bestseller lists. Why? What's the crossover appeal of these works?

Lyda Morehouse, mod.; Roy C. Booth, Naomi Kritzer, Michael Levy, Joan Marie Verba


5:00-5:30 PM Railroad Lobby (near Registration)
Massive Autographing: David G. Hartwell, Joan Slonczewski, Lyda Morehouse, John Calvin Rezmerski, Roy C. Booth, Catherine Lundoff


Sunday, July 31:

Noon-12:55 PM Main Krushenko's Annex (Northern Pacific)
Panel: Thor: The God, the Comic, the Movie
We'll dip a bit into Norse mythology, dip a bit more into the comic created (1962-) by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby, then consider the May movie. God-like or Thunderously Disappointing?

Lyda Morehouse, mod.; S.N. Arly, Eleanor Arnason, Roy C. Booth, Terry Faust

3:00-3:55 PM Main Stage
Discussion: The Works of Lyda Morehouse and Tate Hallaway
Come, talk and ask questions about the work of our Special Guest and her mysterious alter ego.

David Lenander, mod.; Lyda Morehouse. Sponsored by the Rivendell Group, a fantasy-book discussion group that has met regularly since late 1973 or early 1974.


5:00-5:30 PM Main Stage
Closing Ceremonies
Scott Lohman, MC; David G. Hartwell, Lyda Morehouse, John Calvin Rezmerski, Eric M. Heideman; Joan Slonczewski, C.L. Moore, in absentia

Friday Cat Blogging

If I hadn't just had my claws trimmed, I'd open it myself.



I can't believe you just did that to my feet!



If you try to trim my claws, I will kill you with my mind.



Oh my god! He's disarming me! Help!



Bonus Rocky Mountain Kitties:

They are coming!



I will destroy them with my laser eyes.



Lear…King Lear. Wait, who are coming?

Boba is in the House!

Don't Forget...!

I'll be reading (or taking part in a discussion?) at Dreamhaven Books tonight from 6:30 - 7:30 pm as part of the Speculations Reading Series, along with fellow Diversicon honored guests David Hartwell and John Calvin Rezmerski.

Hmmm... I hadn't really read that first bit very carefully. Perhaps I _don't_ need to figure out what I need to read tonight....

Either way, it's bound to be a good time. Please join us!

A Secret Admirer or Scary Stalker?

There's a secret, hidden asteroid that's been following Earth for thousands of years. They're calling it the Trojan Asteroid.

Isn't that the planet Gor or something?

Learning to Write

I ran across a reference to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. It sounded interesting, so I got a Nook copy. It's a book on breaking through creative blocks. I guess that's as good a way of describing it as any: part 12-step program, part self-psychoanalysis and part the practice of writing. It makes me uneasy, because Cameron talks about God a lot. However, I've been playing with the book, trying some of the exercises.

One exercise is to write three pages every morning, without planning or revising. Just get words on paper. I have found this very hard. Mostly I write, "I have nothing to say." Of course, I don't have a writer's block, and if I am writing, I want to be writing my current story. Though I could write more. I figure the exercise is to get one in the habit of writing. Maybe I need that.

The next exercise I like: make an artist's date with oneself, a block of time to go out alone to do something that feeds the creative impulse. So I went walking along the river last week. I'm thinking of going to museums, attending concerts. None of these require company.

Another exercise is pick five careers you'd like for yourself. I picked paleontolgist, bird watcher, traveler, poet and social thinker. I do three of the five, to one extent or another. I could do the fourth -- traveling. Nothing holds me back. The fifth -- paleontologist -- is a dream. I don't really want to be somewhere in the desert with blazing heat and no bathrooms, digging up fossils. And I don't want to be sitting in a museum somewhere, using a dental pick and a toothbrush to free bones from their matrices. I like reading and thinking about paleontology.

I guess another dream career would be union organizing. But I've tried organizing. I'm terrible at it.

Maybe it would be easier to write.

I also started rereading Natalie Goldberg's Long, Quiet Highway, which is about writing and Zen practice; and I got the Nook version of her how-to book about writing, Writing Down the Bones.

Why am I doing this? Maybe I will learn something.

Welcome!!

Wyrdsmiths is proud to announce that we have added a new member to our ranks. Let me introduce to you: Adam Stemple

Adam Stemple is an author, musician, web designer, and professional card player. He has written 4 novels, including Pay the Piper (with Jane Yolen), winner of the 2006 Locus Award winner for Best Young Adult Book. Of his debut solo novel, Singer of Souls, Anne McCaffrey said, "One of the best first novels I have ever read."

If you're not yet impressed, his entire list of credentials is here.

Why Shouldn't Writers Use Their Time Machines?

Eleanor Arnason is right and I'm wrong. I can feel it in the back of my head, burbling away in that pot that I left sitting on the back burner. But I don't know why I'm wrong, or how to be right, so it's not the most helpful feeling.

At Wyrdsmiths last Thursday night, I suggested moving the start of a novel up a couple of scenes, to where the intrigue really kicks in: a character knocks at a doorway of a run-down, vacant looking storefront where they've been directed to find a strange organization. They end up waiting at the door, letting suspense build. I suggested starting there, then popping back to establish what happened to bring them to that point while the character is waiting, then re-establish the here and now moment when the door opens and they are drawn inside.

Eleanor stopped me and said she hates the use of the flashback, and that backstory should just be layered in as the story goes forward. My gut says that she is right, that relying on the flashback can be a cheap way out of a complicated situation, and the weaker option in creating a well-structured story. BUT...

...I don't know how else to do it, aside from straight up character recollection/exposition. I know that the audience will need certain information to understand what's going on, and to be introduced to certain characters, and to develop sympathy with the main character(s). Backstory is a well-established literary device. But sometimes that information isn't available outside the context of its own scene.

In a time-travel story, backstory can be established in the main flow, as the characters experience the jump in the time flow with the reader and are thus moving forward even as they replay the past. It's not so easy outside of that specific device, though, and I'd like to hear what our denizens have found effective in layering in backstory, either in your own work or in stories you've read. What works well, and what doesn't? And, if you'll share, why?