Category: philosophy

A Guide to Life

Sometimes I pick up books with titles spouting wisdom, like “everything a girl needs to know in her 20s” or “how to run a modern household.” Some of the information is always new, and some of it I know. I just find it interesting to read.

I suppose part of the reason why is to gain perspective into what others might want, to use as a character (possibly) or to use the information in a story. Of course, that would mean restricting it to the real world, but all sorts of items can be adapted to other locations.

It occurs to me that I read Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy and the follow-up Extras and not one of his female protagonists ever talked about her shoes. Okay, so there are only two protagonists through those four books, but don’t you think shoes would come up at some point? Especially in the Prettytime, when everything was about the aesthetic value and their brains had been altered to think that way (about aesthetics, not about forgetting shoes).

Since most of the guides I’ve read are about women’s lives, I think next time I hit the library I’ll look for a male counterpart. Is there a male counterpart to those guides on how to live as a girl? That would definitely make interesting reading, even though most men don’t dote on shoes like women.

I bet they’d be missing the section on manicures and pedicures…

Other than that, I am sure there should be something to apply to men. It’s not like men get a free ride on stuff women somehow don’t learn growing up.  [And to be fair, it’s not like our mothers didn’t try to teach us to check the labels on clothing for care like dry cleaning or  machine wash warm-tumble dry low. I was listening. Very few clothes are cute enough to have to dry clean all the time.]

The answers are out there. Sometimes you just have to find the right question. And don’t spout 42 at me. If you don’t know what the question was, you can’t necessarily say it’s the answer to everything.

Posted on by ransomnoble 8

A Question of Character

A writer friend of mine attended a weekend conference in Iowa City about character. He wrote to me about some of the activities, and suddenly one of the ideas I’d been working flared into something I had to work on right away.

So one of the plots I’ve been toying with now has a character. I may not be exactly sure what she looks like or what her name is, but I did see part of her world. It also brought me into her mind for awhile, which was more of what I needed to get connected to her.

Because, really, does her eye color, hair color, or even skin color matter just yet? It might not end up mattering at all, unless she becomes green-skinned for some reason. (Or any other outlandish color.)

Sometimes I’m still waffling between how close my third person narration is to my character. Am I going to tell you about that black-haired blue-eyed midget, or will I show you that everyone towers over him?

It’s just interesting to see how the character expresses him- or herself when you get out of the way. I might not think about my natural light brown hair, especially if I get another color – like red – out of a bottle to amuse myself. Some characters might feel that way, and others might feel a sense of loss for their old color. Some may never glance in a mirror at all.

That’s the beauty of characters. They’re unique, with their own stories to tell, and with different personalities to uncover through the story process.

It feels so good to start connections to them again. Getting a lead character might just get that novel project going. Not that I need another novel to work on right now, but maybe it’ll scare Don’t Tell Your Mother into some necessary revisions…

Posted on by ransomnoble 2

Description

How do you know when it’s too much or too little?

I usually err on the side of ‘not enough’. I work while I revise to make certain the world, the character, and the actions are shown enough for the reader to make sense of it. Sometimes I keep too much of it in my head in the first draft.

There are exercises to work on description, but they don’t change what I do as I write. I’m getting better at finding the line where the descriptions are needed, but I never want to put in too many.

I’ve never been a fan of purple prose.

When I find those overflowing, descriptive passages, they’re in other people’s work. It can be very pretty, except when it gets in the way of the story. It’s so hard to tell someone, “You know, I don’t think this is working for your story. What’s actually happening here?”

I get the “show, don’t tell” references, but precious few references tell you how to go about that. And they don’t say a lot for when you think you’re showing it all, only to find out you’re on a tangent that doesn’t advance the plot.

Wait, they do have a saying for it: Kill your darlings.

It doesn’t tell you how. Or where. Or why. Is it measurable between dialogue beats, narration, emotional response of character to events? I doubt it will surprise anyone to say I’m reading a book about it to understand more and critique better, partly because I can’t just say, “This is the point where my mind wanders away. Fix it.”

Writing is such a harsh business. We have to be critical to each other, critical of our own work, and submit to the critique of editors and agents we may never meet.

Posted on by ransomnoble 2

What do you do?

What do you do when the words won’t come?

The ideas swim in my head like koi in the pond at the zoo, but when I try to string a sentence together, nothing’s coming out just yet. Not even blog posts- as you can see by my absence.

I’m curious what others do to beat the block. Lately I’m researching and taking a lot of notes.

Posted on by ransomnoble 4

A Working Schedule

Schedules don’t have to be bad things. Work has to be done, and it’s better to do it when you’re fresh – or at least when you’re ready to do it.

When I sit down to write, it’s when my daughter goes down to nap. I suppose it doesn’t really matter what time of day it is, it’s just very difficult to concentrate on my book when she’s awake.

I hear a lot of advice saying to write before she gets up, but I don’t normally get up before she does. I often keep at it after she’s asleep, but that’s only because I can’t get myself to sleep at 8pm when I make her go to bed.

If I could, I might wake up early enough to get stuff done before she wakes.

I find it interesting that one relative – her children are about my parents’ age – thought it was good to take away naps to get them to sleep better at night. I wonder if her kids were cranky. Mine would be, if I tried that on her. I’d just as soon she had her naps in the daytime when I get a chance to be productive.

Posted on by ransomnoble 0

Noveling

I like to have it as an official rule that I only work on one novel at a time, but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’m revising Don’t Tell Your Mother with some success, but … but … but … !

So, of course, when I’m trying to focus on one, ideas start pouring out of my head. What’s the deal? Why can’t they just wait until I get to that lull where the current project made it through the big rewrite and needs less attention?

It seems to happen each time I get to about this point. I don’t want to abandon the current project and leave it in a randomly drafted state. It’s less random than most of my rough drafts, but it still leaves a lot that needs to be fixed, tweaked, whatever you want to call it.

Instead of completing denying the other one, I’ve begun plotting it. I am trying to hold it off so I can focus on it. I’m not one of those people who gets enough writing time to write until I’m blocked, which means I don’t need four works-in-progress at any given time.

Not that I don’t have those, but most of them are short stories that need revision, rather than novels that are begging me to write them.

I wish I knew a faster way to revise, but my rough drafts come out fast because of my focus. I think rewriting takes more of my thoughts to get the manuscript where I want it, and that makes it slow.

Any other thoughts on that? Do you work on one major project at a time, or dabble in several at once? At what point is it okay to start on that new project? How do you know you’re done with the last one?

Are you ever done with the last one?

Posted on by ransomnoble 2

Dedication

I’ve been accused of being dedicated to my writing. It’s true. I was more dedicated (are there levels of dedication?) before my daughter was born.

Kids change plans because we’re not just accountable for ourselves anymore. Someone else needs time and attention and diaper changes and food. Lots of food!

Luckily she naps and gives me time to write. As long as I sleep less than she does, there’s time to squeeze it in. So you won’t find me doing laundry or dishes or any other household chores during that time, because I only keep up with them enough to get by.

I know I’ll never be an immaculate housekeeper because it isn’t that important to me. I prefer to write. Who wants to spend all their time keeping the house in perfect order anyway? My daughter scatters her toys all over the floor and it would be a full-time job to keep them – and her – corralled in one spot. If the kitchen and bathrooms are in order, a lot of the rest can slide.

Yeah, I bet a lot of you aren’t coming to my house anytime soon, but those that do can’t complain. I don’t let it get to a point where it’s embarrassing, but like the old saying goes: “on your death bed, you’ll never say you wished you spent more time cleaning your house.” Or was it at the office?

Does it really matter? If you know what’s important to you, get it done. There’s always time to squeeze in a little more. And there’s no room for belly-aching if you just didn’t want to get off the couch because there was another movie on. You can spend 30 hours a week playing video games. You may choose to do anything you want (within certain limits, such as legality and morality). It’s a choice. Live with it.

Posted on by ransomnoble 0

Common Usage

Do you wonder when it’s common usage mistakes or just someone being picky? I’m a writer and I have above average grammar skills. I know a few grammarians who still correct a few things about my usage (like ending sentences with prepositions) that may be part of common speech patterns, especially in my geographical area, but overall I can construct decent sentences and I use the proper word.

Some words are more difficult to use properly than others. Is it picky to make certain you use the proper form of lie or lay? How about your and you’re (and yore)? Their, there, and they’re? It’s and its? Affect and effect?

Do you wonder how long it will be before these words are indistinguishable?

Is it really that difficult to know which word you’re supposed to use? Does it matter?

From dictionary.com’s entry for “your”:

—Usage note
In American English the pronoun you has been supplemented by additional forms to make clear the distinction between singular andplural. You-all, often pronounced as one syllable, is a widespread spoken form in the South Midland and Southern United States. Its possessive is often you-all’s rather than your. You-uns (from you + ones ) is a South Midland form most often found in uneducated speech; it is being replaced by you-all. Youse  ( you  + the plural -s ending of nouns), probably of Irish-American origin, is most common in the North, especially in urban centers like Boston, New York, and Chicago. It is rare in educated speech. You guys  is a common informal expression among younger speakers; it can include persons of both sexes or even a group of women only. See also me.

This doesn’t even count the random variations like my mother-in-law’s “youze guys”. She wasn’t Irish, I swear.

So when the dictionary says “it’s rare in education speech,” they’re not counting anything on Facebook, right? And while it’s terribly rude to tell someone about those typos – deliberate or not – it sets teeth on edge for those of us who use the words properly.

And even some of us who don’t.

Do you ever wonder what the words you use say about you? They can tell where you’re from, how much education you have, and quite a bit more that I don’t recall off the top of my head. It’s one reason speech writers have jobs – to give public figures the words they need to get a point across without sounding like their normal selves. Interesting, huh?

Luckily, I’m a fiction writer, so I get to plop all kinds of words into character’s mouths to make them sound like the real people they are, or whatever other point I’m attempting to make at the time.

Posted on by ransomnoble 5

Doubt

I read in a book, I think it was by Orson Scott Card, that at some point in every novel he’d call his agent and say he was quitting his novel project and he had something else he’d rather work on.

Sometimes I wonder how common that is among writers, and if we hit that wall of doubt in similar places. I suspect we don’t.

I’m finding my doubts coming through lately, slowing my pace considerably. Rough drafts I can knock out without much trouble, and I always tell myself it doesn’t matter what kind of shape it’s in, I can fix it later.

It’s after that when the doubts settle in. When I’m trying to change those stubborn passages until they work within the greater whole. When I’m working on the subplots that just popped up and took too much out of the main story. When the thing stares at me and just won’t do what I want it to do.

A couple of my short stories are similarly stalled at the moment. I’m at a loss how to pick up and go from here. I’d rather not start something new, but I don’t want to be doing nothing, either, when I’m so stuck on the current chapter of my book.

These niggling doubts hold me back, but I can’t just dismiss them. Well, I’d like to, but they won’t go away. It probably doesn’t help when I read about how tough it is to break into the publishing markets (nevermind that I’m already published, I still worry).

How do you deal with doubts?

Posted on by ransomnoble 5

Father’s Day

Last year I got my husband a book to read to our daughter. I think I’ve read it to her more than he has. So I probably ought to skip the book route for him.

But books are so fun to look for, buy, and read. I suppose no one can blame me for that- I’m a writer. It should be expected. I come from a family of readers – books are always great gifts.

I suppose one day I will accept that my husband is not – and never will be – a reader. Luckily, the same does not seem to be true for my daughter, who loves to page through her books, my books, any kind of paper she can get her hands on.

It’s cute, though also frustrating. I never know where I’ll find anything! Pens must be out of reach, too, because she wanders off with them. And everything else she can toddle off with.

And I get to spend the rest of the day with her and my husband. I hope he likes the non-book gift.

Okay, I got him one book this year, but it’s not the main gift, and I think he might like it… Maybe? Hopefully?

Posted on by ransomnoble 2