Laura Brewer's Blog, page 7

Walking On The Dark Side

Getting into the head of an antagonist is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. When I was writing Selarial’s Song, I did some of the story from the POV of a mercenary who delighted in torture. I had to go even more deeply into his twisted mind in Dream Song. The experience gave me nightmares, but it was necessary in order to write his character realistically.  I find I cannot spend much time in the mind of a truly evil character without paying for the experience. Like Yoda said, “Once you start down the path to the dark side, consume you it will.”

It taught me a couple of things.

First, if you want a strong, realistic antagonist, you must know what makes him/her tick. If you are going to write anything from his/her POV, you have to know how his/her mind works. You have to feel as they would feel, see as they would see, react as they would react. Maybe my imagination is a little too good. I found out more than I wanted to know, certainly more than I was willing to write at the time. Looking back, I see I should have probably been willing to let more of his character surface in the story and it’s something I am working on for future bad guys. It is hard to write a character when what you’ve found in their mind makes you want to throw up. Maybe I’m squeamish

I do know that if you don’t explore them, they will be flat when you write them. When you do get a solid impression of their personality, their part of the story comes to life and the tension between the antagonist and the protagonist is stronger. The reader clearly sees what’s at stake in as realistic of terms as the writer is willing to go. Sometimes, even further than the writer is willing to go in actual words. If set up properly, a mere suggestive line or two can create more vividly horrific images in a reader’s mind than all the explicit, gory description you can come up with. Personally, I find explicit, gory descriptions counter productive, sometimes even boring, but that is another post.

Second, you need to be prepared to detox after a trip into the dark side. Exactly how is a personal thing, but if you don’t do this, long excursions into evil will begin to color your perceptions of the real world. At the least, it will make you rather grumpy and temperamental. It is similar to the kind of detox I used to have to do after spending a few days with an elderly relative whom I loved, but she was one of the most negative people I knew. After being around her for a few days, everything looked gloomy and I had to purge the negative and reset my thinking.

I have ventured far outside of my comfort zone into unpleasant realms. I think as writers, we must do this to some degree or risk losing a realistic voice in our writing.

Just don’t forget the chocolate!

What Happened To Thinking?

I am disturbed by the trends in our society these days. No one seems to understand the importance of actually thinking. An incident last week seems to cover it all. I was attempting to discuss the book I’m working on with a young man and he had this vacant expression on his face. I asked if he ever read books and the vacant expression grew. His answer? “I like movies.” Obviously, books take work. You have to think and use your imagination. I’m not sure he has one of his own.

Add that to the trends towards movies that are eye candy and you have the proverbial mindless entertainment. I loved the Eragon book, but the movie was truly mindless. Now, I know the old book vs movie argument, but what I’m getting at goes deeper than the way the plot gets chopped up. The movie eliminated virtually all of the thought provoking internal conflict Eragon went through that was a critical part of the story. It then limited itself to the action scenes that would best hold the movie going audience’s attention. There was no real story left, just fast moving eye candy. We used to have movies that would make you actually think, but these days they are rare.

Why?

It’s the path of least resistance. It’s easier to watch a video than to read an instruction manual. We have come to the point where easier is always better, even though it’s not. Not for the task at hand, not for what it does to our ability to solve problems in general. In fact, it’s a huge trap. We have become far too dependent on the easy way of doing anything. We are enamored of the attitude of good enough. I am an anomaly. I go out of my way to appreciate something that takes effort of mind or body. I don’t like most contraptions designed to take all the effort out of what I do. I don’t learn anything that way. I do not improve a skill or learn to correct mistakes.

We live in an age where people sit and text to each other in little snippets and call it conversing. It’s easier than actually talking with someone. We watch the news and wait for the broadcast to tell us, not just what happened, but what it means. Have we lost all ability to determine the meaning for ourselves? What are we sacrificing by letting someone else do the thinking for us?

NaNo – The Inspiration And The Goal

Doing NaNoWriMo can be a complex challenge. As one of the coaches recently said, the daily word count goal is a little light for what a professional (read full time) writer would do on a regular basis. I agree with that. For those of us who are not yet full time writers, or who have other obligations that cut into writing time, it is an inspiration to set some of that aside for a month and let the word count take us where it will.

I reached a milestone last night of over 10k and that puts me on track for my personal goal. Today should see me at the 25% mark. Part of the challenge in writing to a deadline is knowing when life is going to intervene no matter what. Thanksgiving will certainly cut two days out of my writing time. I will be lucky to get in any words at all. My goals have to account for that.

It isn’t easy. I have already had two days that were nearly useless. I have also had days that went beyond my expectations to make up for it. The daily goal is good, but for me, the weekly goal is more important. It all depends on how you work, I suppose. Having weekly goals keeps me from loosing sight of where I’m going when I happen to have a bad day. If I was totally dependent on daily goals, it would be hard to overcome that. As it is, I keep my eye fixed on the larger objective and know that when I next sit down, I can churn out over 3k in an evening, if I am at the right place in the work. This keeps me from stressing too much when a small, but important, subplot is giving me fits.

The battle scenes, or any serious conflict, tend to be fast to write with high word counts. They inspire strong images and strong writing. Any emotionally charged scene also goes fast. It’s the introspective scenes, or the ones that expose the reader to inner workings of an antagonist, that are the harder ones for me to write. Probably because I don’t like what lives in the antagonist’s head and don’t want to go there any more than I have to.

My biggest concern right now is that I may run out of story before I hit 50k. I want to avoid that. I know how long the book should be relative to the first two. If It looks like it’s going short, I will be scrambling for what I left out that may be important.

NaNoWriMo Starts Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I will again take the plunge into the intensive writing that is NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don’t know, it’s National Novel Writers Month, a challenge to write 50k words on a novel in the month of November. That’s a lot of words, trust me.

The challenge never fails to deliver some good writing for me, even though I have yet to reach the 50k goal. It’s a great way to get a serious push to a new project, or to finish out one that I have been putting off. Something about the challenge inspires and drives your fingers across the keyboard. Part of it is the freeing knowledge that there are no rules. You can clean up the grammar latter; all that matters is getting the story down. I have found that I produce some of my best work during NaNo. I set aside all the distractions of life and only come up for air for the really important ones.

That probably says something about how we fill our days up with useless things, since meals still get cooked, laundry done, schoolwork checked. Our jobs are not neglected. This year I have the additional challenge of getting a book store set up at the same time. It will all still get done. Word counts will rise, not always steadily, but they will. At the end of November, I will have the final book in the Talmanor trilogy finished, or nearly so.

I will go back to making blog posts once a week, quite likely Nano related. I may even post an excerpt or two. My prep is almost done. I have coffee, notes and laptop. What more do you need?

Come and join us. There’s always room for one more!

http://www.nanowrimo.org

 

What I Learned From My Father

The most profound lessons we learn in life are usually the most simple. They sound trite to us in youth, easily pushed aside, until we take time to reflect on the simplicity of truth. My father lost his third round with cancer over thirty years ago, but I can still hear his voice in memory. He is still there for me when I need him to be. He was a minister, teacher and leader. He had an inner strength that I only learned to truly appreciate long after he was gone. He was certainly not perfect, but men like him are all too rare.

He grew up on a farm, next to oldest of thirteen children. It was the Depression, but I think the basic way of life would still have mandated what he learned there and passed on to me. Nearly all of his lessons were by example, not lectures.

If it’s broke – fix it – yourself.

Don’t EVER throw anything away that may still have some use. (Country people were far more true conservationists than any modern ‘greenie’ you will ever see. They still understood the real meaning of the term was wise use of all resources because resources were limited, including time and money.)

You make it, grow it, build it – or you do without. There were few exceptions to this.

Work hard, but occasionally play hard as well.

Any time someone gives or loans you money, you give over a certain amount of control of your life to that person, or institution. (It took me a long time to realize some of the broader implications of that lesson. I can guarantee you government knows this!)

When raising children, have few rules, but do not deviate from those rules. Consistency is crucial.

Don’t make a rule you are unwilling to follow yourself.

Never administer discipline when you’re angry. Besides, the wait for the proverbial ax to fall was often the worst part.

He taught kids with learning disabilities, as well as being a pastor. He touched more lives, in a positive way, than will ever be known. He passed the basic principals along to all the kids he taught through example. In an inner city school, where crime was rampant, he garnered the respect of kids who respected little. There was once an incident of a pair of twins (1st graders) rolling a drunk on the way to school, stealing the man’s boots and $20. That’s the kind of place it was.

When he first accepted a position in a northern public school in 1968, he hadn’t been told that corporal punishment was against the rules.  At 6′ 2″ and the only male teacher, you would think most kids would be at least a little cautious, but they had learned discipline there was a joke. In the first week, a 5th grader got in his face and said, “You can’t make me do nuthin!” Big mistake.

Dad promptly picked him up by the shirt, swept his feet out from under him, laid him on the floor, put his big, #13 foot on his chest and said, “Son, if you ever talk to me that way again, I’ll stomp you till there’s nothing left but a grease spot.” I know, very bad conduct to all appearances. He was colorful in expression, but I’m certain he did not mean it literally. The principal managed to do some fast talking to keep him on staff and then informed dad what the rules were. *Note – the child was not even bruised, just scared silly.*

I relate this story because ten years later, all one of the older women teachers had to say to a rowdy class was “Should I call Mr. Blair?” and they instantly became model students. Even though he had never laid a hand on another student after that one incident, the news spread from class to class, one year to the next – you don’t mess with Mr. Blair.

The other side of that coin is the fact that he went out of his way to do really neat things with his kids. He frequently spent his own money on materials for special projects, like leather working, making real butter (he got the cooks to make some special rolls to go with it), and anything else he could think of to teach them that they were capable young people who could DO things. When he was in the hospital, the walls looked papered in cards, with more stacked on the window sill, many from past students. In short they loved him, as much for his discipline as for his teaching.

That is one of the most important things I learned. To be as caring in discipline as you are in teaching. Life requires both in balance with each other. He would never have been able to do all those things with his kids, if he had not first gained their respectful attention with discipline.

I regret that his grandchildren never got to know him growing up. He went from us way too young. I miss him still.

Challenge – What’s The name?

Okay, so I just bought some used books. Ah, actually a LOT of used books. Being between work projects at the moment, I’m running with the used bookstore idea. It’s a good one, I love books and I love Old books. Nice quiet time to write, good people, good environment, in a nutshell, it’s perfect. Except for one thing.

I need a really good name for the book store.

My intent is to create a comfortable atmosphere that will speak of curling up before a fire with a cat and a good book. The interior and displays I can handle, but I’m having trouble coming up with a name that will be suggestive of that kind of -books are old friends- comfort. The plan is to even have a resident bibliocat.

Here are some thoughts I had, but none seem quite right. I’d love some outside input.

Old Friends Book Store

Books Are Old Friends

Fireside Books

The Olde Book Corner

I am leaning towards one of the last two, but leave a comment and tell me what you think. Suggestions are welcome.

Happy Reading!

 

Update On The Book Rescue

I really may have to open a book store! We packed up two van loads of books today. There are the expected paperbacks and children’s books, but an astonishing number of classics, history books (one of my personal favorite categories) and some good nonfiction. I could scream over some of the boxes that had gotten wet and ruined everything. We’re not talking cheap paperbacks here, but what had recently been quality hardback books.

One set that I am excited about is The Annals Of America. It is 21 volumes of beautifully bound books on American history through 1986. If they are all there, this alone will justify the effort. I’m pretty sure they are all there, since I even found the paperback introduction to it that is a table of contents and sources.

One more load should get the rest of them safely home where I can sort and catalog the largesse. I know what I’m going to be doing for the next couple days

Little Voices

Little voices in the pews

Often hushed

Yet, they hold a joyful news

In their presence

 

Little voices are the future

Ring with laughter

Blessings that we all must nurture

Gift of promise

 

For as we grow old and gray

They take our places in their day.

NaNoWriMo – Going Rogue

This year I’m breaking the rules. As I prepared for yet another November of intensive writing, I realized the motivation would be far better spent finishing the third book in the Talmanor trilogy. I have two other projects waiting in the wings and my inclination was to start on the new project. I keep wanting to push that third book aside. In my heart, I know that would be a mistake. I need to get it done. The goal of 50k words ought to just about finish it up.

If I go on to those other projects, it will be that much harder to get back to the trilogy. Never, would I have believed I’d get tired of this story, but I have. Don’t get me wrong, I love the story about Selarial, Alcar and the team, as I love the entire Universe in which they live. It’s time for some new storylines and some new characters though. The ancient history of Sorth beckons, as does the psychic cat detective, Ghost.

Yes, it’s time to close up this series and get the final book published. In a way, I will miss Selarial. I started writing with her and she’s been a long time companion. Who knows, maybe she and Alcar will find their way into another story in a some way. It’s really a very small universe after all and stranger things can happen.

To the Rescue – Of Old Books

I just got back from the local flea market. It’s a great place to find those odd antique tools and other rare tidbits. Our local has a bunch of books piled in the corner. Some of them are stacked (or should I say packed) on shelves. I have found a few gems in there, but it’s hard. They simply aren’t accessible for browsing. There are boxes of books stacked under their shed. It makes me want to cry.

I love books. Ebooks are okay, but I prefer actual printed books. Even the types I don’t read and don’t particularly want to own should be treated with more respect than these. They need homes of their own. They should be loved and read.

They buy out estates for stock, but seem to consider the books more trouble than they’re worth. They have an incredible mix from medical text and reference to 60 year old classics to erotic romance novels – and everything in between. I made an offer a while back to help organize and work up a list to sell them on Amazon, but was ignored.

This morning, I asked him to make me a price on every book he had. He will get space, I will rescue the books, and possibly turn a profit. Who knows, if there is enough stock, and they are willing to cut me a deal on any future estate books, I may just open a used book. store.