Sue Perry's Blog: Required Writing, page 38

33 RPM With a Font

Saw a statistic today about how rapidly brick and mortar bookstores are dwindling in numbers. I confess that overall nowadays, I prefer reading a screen to reading a page. But I would hate it if there were no bookstores. Wandering among books is such a great pleasure.

I think printed books will turn out to be like vinyl records. Simply too good to go away.

Cuteness in Seal Form

Here is a baby harbor seal, once injured and nursed back to health by a Santa Barbara, California, rescue group. When able to fend for himself, he will be returned to the nearby ocean. And not a minute too soon – he is mighty bored!

Humans are as disturbing as they are inspring.  In the aggregate we do so much harm to so many critters but there are always a few to step in and reverse any bad trend.

Plots and Characters in the Raw

Typically, plots of my novels start with a collection of images, moments, vignettes, and other idea snapshots that feel related to me, although I do not always know why. Gradually, I discover the connections as the planning and writing evolve. During that evolution, there will always be ideas that turn out not to fit, after all, and I have to scrap those.

Similarly, my characters start as a pastiche of attitudes, actions, and problems, which may be drawn from people I know, situations I have experienced, or stuff I’ve overheard in passing. (Beware discussing your life while standing in a grocery store line. There may be an eavesdropping writer nearby.) As the book progresses, I inevitably discover that multiple characters have conflicting traits that all belong to me. Real humans tend to be more contradictory than even the most complex of characters. Perhaps on certain levels I use the characters to work through some of my contradictions.

A Shout Out about Kelly Joe Phelps

Kelly Joe Phelps is one of the great guitar players of our lifetimes.  He clearly lives to play music, he tours continuously, and my guess is that music is what keeps him alive and keeps his many demons mostly under control.

He has just announced cancellation of his current tour dates on two continents because he is suffering from something called ulnar neuropathy, which prevents him from using his right hand.

For all of the reasons stated above, I fervently wish him a fast and full recovery.

Most people don’t know about him. One of the few good and lucky things about the years I lived in Oregon (long and other story) was my discovery of Phelps there, shortly after his career started, back when the locals nicknamed him “Cujo”. As a fan, I’ve strayed over the years, because sometimes he is just too much for me. But I’ve always come back.

If you want to check him out, here are some facts and links:

He has nine albums. My personal favorite may be Shine Eyed Mr. Zen.
He made one fantastic album with Corinne West, Magnetic Skyline, then, tragically, they broke up.
He combines elements of jazz, delta blues, folk, and spiritual music.
He is dark and strange and sad and deep – and can be really, really funny.
He has been called “the Coltrane of slide guitar” although he does more fingerpicking nowadays.
He has lots of stuff on Youtube. His most recent YouTube videos are from his new album. I especially like “Hard Time They Never Go Away”.
He has a website that can steer you to the various places to get his music.
He has a sanctioned, fan-operated Facebook page.

21st Century Notecards

Warning: I really geek out during this post! But I supply these details in case they help another writer who wants to leave notecards behind.

When I first started writing, each novel would have an inches-thick stack of notecards. I taped cards to a wall and removed or X’ed them as the writing advanced. The advantage of notecards, of course, is that it is so much easier to add, reorder, and scrap when a single idea exists on a single page.

Even though I was an early adopter of computers for every other stage of writing, for a long time I still needed the heft and tangibility of the note cards for planning.

I wanted to switch to digital planning long before I actually did so. I tried a number of apps and softwares designed for organizing ideas (mind maps and stickies and To Do list kinds of things). They didn’t work for me.

Then I tried presentation software, and that has allowed me to replace notecards with slides. Nowadays, I plan my novels on Keynote on my iPad… unless I need to do wholesale reorganizing. When that happens, I convert the file to Powerpoint and work on my computer, because if I need to move a lot of stuff around, I want a mouse and Microsoft’s “light table” features (where all the slides can be seen at one time) are more versatile than Keynote’s.  I adore my iPad but editing on an iPad induces pain.

P.S. To plot the bigger, broader, arcs and trends of a novel, I am fond of a software called Popplet, which lets me put ideas in small color coded boxes, move them around, and connect them.

Life is Good, part 1

Confess Your Blogging Habits! (Anonymously)

New poll, added to this blog’s home page. Look right and maybe a bit down.

The Subconscious as a Collaborator

How do you come up with your book titles?  Asked this recently, my answer came quickly: At some point I just know what the title is. Which means I’ve been working on it subconsciously. Which makes me realize how essential my subconscious is to the writing process:

Stuck? Set it aside and come back to it tomorrow. Usually when I wake up I know what to do – my subconscious figured it out.
Sudden discovery, typically while brushing teeth or gardening, of a plot twist that ramps up the tension and surprise? Thank you subconscious, you are always on the job.
Realization, as the book nears completion, that details have coalesced into a united theme? My subconscious knew from the beginning what this book was about; the conscious mind is always the last to know.

My principle motivation to write is a desire to connect with other people, but a secondary motivation is to connect with myself and see what will next emerge.

As I write this I find it difficult to say “I figured it out subconsciously” rather than “my subconscious figured it out”.  It doesn’t disturb me to feel that I contain these separate entities.  Should it? 

Shore Birds Steal the Show

At a crew meet, flocks of shore birds made a wonderful noise when they landed – like a thick layer of shells in surf.  Just ignore the humans in this video…

Beach Rorschach

So what do you see in this photo? Maybe a bearded guy sticking his tongue out?

Neil Young stage garb of the ’60s?

How about this one? Lunar landscape or medical close-up?