D Day

Drop by David Anthony Durham's blog and give him a "Congratulations".

Acacia makes its debut in bookstores today!

Read, enjoy, then head to David's brand spankin' new Forum to discuss Acacia: Book One, The War With The Mein.

You know you want to read it.


This message brought to you by the Subliminal Gnomes of the Blogsphere, Corrupting Writers since 1932. "Im in ur Net, makn U du Stuf"

I summon Yssrs, the Orc-Gnome

Dear Scott,

Get writing or the awesome power of Yssrs, the Orc-Gnome shall be unleashed on thy ass.

Sincerely,

Yer Fans.


Im in Ur hwase, reedin Ur book

On Negativity and A Writing Life

Since I posed the question on David Anthony Durham's blog, "Why do writers obsess on the negative?", I rummaged around on my bookshelf and pulled out John Gardner's "On Becoming A Novelist". Right in the preface Gardner had some interesting things to say about writers and the negative.

"The whole world seems to conspire against the young novelist. The young man or woman who announces an intention of becoming an M.D. or an electrical engineer or a forest ranger is not immediately bombarded with well meaning explanations of why the ambition is impractical, out of reach, a waste of time and intelligence." I see this everyday in our schools, as they try and remold my teenager into someone else, someone more socially acceptable to them. He wants to be a musician; they discuss the electrician shortage and the opportunity for high paying jobs. Not going to college? Then be a welder. 'Dreams and passion don't pay the rent, or put food on the table,' he was told by one counselor. Maybe not, but they feed the soul instead of choke the life out of it.

In discussing The Writer's Nature, Gardner talks of the influence others have on a writer, both positive and negative. "In my own experience, nothing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family and friends. To most people, there is something special and vaguely magical about writing, and it is not easy for them to believe someone they know—someone quiet ordinary in many respects—can really do it."

Writing is not a high visibility occupation, or a high paying one. (For most of us.) The implication is that it's almost un-American to write instead of working a high paying job. Everyone else had to give up their dreams, why can't you? What's wrong with you? Grow up.

Gardner explores how well meaning family and friends press social and family obligations on the writer until the writer believes he is a failure if he can't meet everyone's expectations. He is told these other obligations are more important than writing, than the obligation to himself. The subtle negativity is absorbed until the writer believes it and repeats it back. Gardner goes on to talk about how the writer goes through various stages of growth and compensation for the negative, and either become successful by his own standards, or gives up.

The psychology of the writer is of concern to Gardner, and he speaks flippantly of how most happy, well-adjusted children do not become writers, and that novelists "learned to depend on himself" and to "look inward for approval and support".

"One often finds novelists are people who learned in childhood to turn, in times of distress, to their own fantasies or to fiction, the voice of some comforting writer, not to human beings near at hand. This is not to deny that it also helps if a novelist finds himself with one or more loved ones who believe in his gift and work."

So is this true for you? Do you have a support system that helps you overcome the negativity rays and keeps you focused on your goal? Is there a balance between being a writer and outside expectations? How much do friends and family influence our perceptions of self as writer? I've gotten my nickel's worth out of my philosophy degree, now it's your turn.

Someone To Watch Over Me

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"You think *Insert hated/loved author here* is surfing the Net? No! He/She's WRITING. Get to work, you slackard!" *pokes writer with pointy stick. hard.*


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I'm Almost A Branch Library

Or: How much research material is enough?

Last count I had 5 seven foot tall bookcases filled... and most of it was non-fiction. I was cleaning and straightening yesterday (to avoid cleaning and straightening other areas of the house) and discovered books I don't even remember obtaining. At one point I must have decided I needed to study up on the Jesuits, Mysticism of the Eastern Churches, and Buddhism, but I have no idea what story I intended to write. Since religion figures in all my stories, it hasn't been a waste. I have several books on physics, astronomy, fuzzy logic, and time. As soon as I got out of school, I discovered I loved physics, and quantum mechanics - what I understand of them so far.

The Roman Empire, Byzantium, Greece, Egypt, and Persia. Mythology, both Eastern and Western. Enough art books to open my own classroom. Psychology and education, but I have an excuse for those, they were part of my abortive attempt to finish my PhD. More philosophy books than I ever needed when I was in school, but hey, teaching it, you never know what you'll need. Dungeons and Dragons, Battletech, Star Wars, Star Trek and Gurps handbooks. Knitting, weaving, sewing, felting and leatherworking. (SCA related, I swear)

Books on how to write. Books on writing techniques. Books on techniques about how to write. Style books and source books, dictionaries and how to's. Books on writing poetry. Books by poets, many of which are distressingly thin, but I guess that's so they leave you wanting more, kind of like those dinner plates at snobby restaurants, artfully arranged and skimpy.

Books with pictures. No, not Dr. Seuss, but National Geographic tomes, and a day in the life of whatever country, and William Wegman, photo books of national parks and photo books of places I wish I could go to. Cookbooks, military history, and computer programming. Anthropology, sociology and ancient architecture.

Engineering, including my manuals from the military. How can such an interesting subject be rendered dry as toast? Oh, yeah, the military, where toast has its own manual.

Fiction is scattered throughout the house, in case I am in need of a quick read while cooking or herding cats. My signed books are enshrined alongside my poetry collections, except for Kris', which is now making the rounds of the local junior high school. (Six kids have read it so far, and more want it. I'd say it's a hit, Kris) I have a Rubbermaid tub full of romance books someone gave me and lots of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. Not much in the way of commercial fiction, although when younger I had a thing for James Mitchner doorstops. A few Steven King – something I share with my oldest. Fiction on Vietnam and WWII.

Even when I go to the library I check a lot of non-fiction books out. Is it fear of influence while I'm writing my own stuff? Or is something else going on here? I've decided it's larger than that. I confess, I suffer from incurable NTK. Need To Know. There's so much out there that I find interesting, there's no way I could specialize and narrow my scope. Probably why I'm not still in school collecting another degree. You know what they say:

"Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing." -- Konrad Lorenz

I don't want to be a specialist. Specialization is for insects, and academics. So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. What's yours?

Next time – I talk about my weird and eclectic collection of DVD's...

Rediscovering Robert Frost - Stealth Sonnets

Digging around my poetry bookshelf I found a battered copy of "The Complete Poems of Robert Frost". How it was overlooked for so long is a mystery, it's a weighty little tome. Then again, there is a Jedi Knight mystique to poetry. When the poet is ready, the poetry form will present itself. I'm ready to tackle sonnets again.

So why didn't I grab my Shakespeare, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or Rossetti? Frost fills the need for sonnet exploration with a more modern twist - but not so modern the form becomes obscure. Shakespearean and Italian sonnets have become ubiquitous, appearing on posters, calendars, and Starbucks coffee mugs. It's like the old days of card catalogs in the library, when flipping through a long topic suddenly made the word you were looking up disappear through excessive familiarity. Frost is accessible, and highly readable. On one level his poetry seems simplistic, basic even. Don't let the ease of presentation fool you, lurking beneath the folksy exterior are some fairly astute observations on nature, emptiness, and relationships.

Frost's poems are deceptive in that they operate on different layers of meaning. At first read you can come away with a quick synopsis of the poem "Good fences make good neighbors" (Mending Wall). The poem is easy to get into with its plain language and clear line of thought. A more studied read through and you suddenly realize that while Frost had the line 'Good fences make good neighbors' in the poem, what he meant might well be the exact opposite. Metaphor works on many levels in a Frost poem, and is a big part of my attraction.

As for sonnets, Frost used both the Shakespearean and Petrarchan forms, although he seems to have blended and borrowed freely between them as well as adding in his own divergence to make a new twist on an old form. "The Silken Tent" is one example, where structure is seemingly abandon as Frost writes the whole sonnet in one long sentence - and it works.

The Silken Tent

by Robert Frost

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.