Category: Slice of Life

Book Review: Quiet

Currently listening to:

“You’re too quiet! Put down your notebook and come be sociable!”

I lost track of the number of times I heard that phrase or similar while growing up. I was always a quieter kid with a story to tell. Certain changes in my family dynamics influenced my withdrawal into myself and my own imaginary worlds, but that never changed the fact that I was instinctively quieter than the majority of my family and peers. This became especially evident when my mom married my step-dad, who is the poster child for the term “extrovert.” This is a man who loses his mind if there is even a hint of quiet in the house. When he wasn’t talking boisterously to someone on the phone or debating something with my mother, the living room TV was blaring at what I was sure was the same decibel level as a fighter jet.

The noise that my step-father brought into the house was overwhelming, and because of it I spent the majority of my childhood in my bedroom with the door shut, scribbling away at my notebooks or becoming absorbed in my art projects. My step-father was also a pastor of more than one church, and there were always social events to attend. It irritated him to no end when I would curl up in a quiet corner of a dimly lit and mostly abandoned room with my notebook as my only security blanket. He just knew there was something wrong with me because I didn’t want to socialize, and he did everything in his power to “bring me out of my shell.”

I won’t argue that there were things that were wrong that influenced the severity of my introversion, but I grew up with the idea that there was something wrong with who I was on a personal level, and that lack of self-worth has haunted me my whole life.

It has been seven years since I graduated from college. My senior year of high-school, I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” out of the females in my class. During college, I served one year as president of the creative writing organization on campus, played the role of Assistant Director for the spring theatre performance, and even gave a speech during a summer writing course for teachers on creative writing and teaching creative writing in class. I graduated from college just a couple decimal points shy of Magna Cum Laude. But after I graduated? After I graduated, I lost all sense of identity.

I have struggled to find a job, any job, much less one that pays a living wage. I have bombed almost every interview I have managed to land. “No one cares about an English degree,” I told myself. But there was more to it than that. I have long known that I become horribly nervous during anything that feels like I’m being evaluated. I don’t like noise, I don’t like chaos, and I don’t handle disappointment or rejection well, taking it as a very personal evaluation of my own worth. Even though I have interviewed for and been willing to work in jobs that require me to do what I don’t like to do, it’s like that hesitancy still leaks through. More times than not, I get ghosted by the places that interview me, even if it’s after a second round of interviews.

For years I have been trying to research ways to “fix” myself and understand why it is that I feel so unwanted in a world that cries “there aren’t enough workers!” I discovered Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain quite by accident on a Reddit thread filled with people like me who were trying to make sense of themselves in a world that seems so loud and intimidating. And let me just say, this book is going on a very short list of “Most Impactful Things I Have Ever Read in My Life.” I wish I had discovered this book sooner. I wish that my mom and step-dad had been able to read this book when I was a kid. And it is one of very few books I think every person in the US (maybe even the world) should read, regardless of their walk in life or personality traits. It has, after all, been a New York Times Bestseller for multiple years in a row for a reason.

Quiet is a book that explores, in great depth, that very stigmatized concept of “introversion.” It discusses everything from the physiological differences between introverts and extroverts to the way that these two very different personality traits can learn to interact and even benefit from each others’ strengths.

One of the things that stood out to me was what Cain refers to as a shift from a “Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality,” in which “Americans started to focus on how others perceived them.” The United States (and Western society in general), she points out, has always been geared toward the bold and gregarious personality types, but that formed into the “Extrovert Ideal” in the early 1900s, and with it has come a society full of anxious people vying to put on the best performance, as so much of business and social success in this day and age hinges on this extroverted behavior.

From beginning to end, I felt like this book was written with me in mind. Cain tells story after story that could easily have been me: a young girl in grade school who gets steamrolled by her more outspoken peers in a group activity because she is too quiet and nervous to try to overtake the louder and more self-assured classmates, a woman pursuing a career in law not because she was passionate about it but because she thought it was what she should do to be successful and was consistently passed up after interviews because her skill could not make up for her lack of passion.

The book cites numerous studies on personality and its many facets, but the one that I found most notable was a study started in 1989 by a man named Jerome Kagan. Kagan recruited a large number of parents with infants and began studying the way in which these infants reacted to new stimuli such as strange noises and unfamiliar faces. Through the study it was discovered that the infants that reacted most notably, the “high reactive” ones as they are called, generally turned into quieter, more “introverted” individuals as they aged. Brain scans showed more activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates how things are perceived, whether the new things are safe or unsafe. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the “high reactive” or “introverted” types. They just perceived the world in a much different way.

I found Cain’s analysis to be not only well-researched but incredibly fair in its approach. Though this is a book geared toward introverts, it doesn’t bash extroverts, and Cain is the first to admit that human personality is far too complex to truly be lumped into a handful of categories. Still, Quiet provides valuable insight in to how introverts, as a whole, relate to the world, and how the world relates to them. Cain provides tips for how introverts might be able to approach finding a career that suits them and how to successfully approach extroverts in both business and personal relationships, all while staying true to their core self. The book also contains advice for corporate leaders on how to help their more introverted employees shine and make the most of their talents, and how extroverted (or traumatized introvert) parents can help their introverted children navigate the complexities of a culture centered around the bold and gregarious.

In the conclusion of the book, I found two parts to be very poignant: “Love is essential; gregariousness is optional” and “The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting.”

Though I wouldn’t even begin to claim that Quiet has given me all the answers to my introverted struggles, I can say with confidence that it has given me some wonderful tools for moving forward and a much better view on my own self-worth. So for the introverts looking to understand how to appreciate themselves and still function in an extroverted culture, or for those extroverts looking to understand introverted peers or loved ones, I highly recommend Quiet as a first step in that journey.

A Star Series Update – October 2021

A Star Series Update – October 2021

Currently listening to:

They say that one of the hardest things about being a writer is deciding what gets to stay and what doesn’t when all is said and done. It’s a common theme for writers. My work is my baby. How can I just let it go?

I started writing the first book in my Legend of the Stars series back when I was a sophomore in high school. Somehow, that one book turned into a trilogy, and by the end of 2012, it had turned into a full-blown series. Thanks to some very honest (if slightly brutal) feedback from my writing mentor in college, I started the process of rewriting my old books, and in 2015 I published the second edition of The Four Stars. And then? Radio silence.

The last six years have been a process of determining what goes and what stays. This series is, as far as maturity level and experience goes, absolutely ancient. With disjointed worldbuilding and character development spread across some 20-odd planned books, where do I even start with trying to piece everything together and convince it all to make sense?

Well, I’ve finally settled on a more concrete plan. The new-and-improved Legend of the Stars series will include a set of four books plus a prequel: The Four Stars, The Secret of Erris, Rebirth, Ancient Vengeance, and Fall of Paradise (the prequel). The first four have already been written. They just need to be revised and reorganized. I’ve already got extended outlines done for the first three and am well on my way through the revised extended outline for Ancient Vengeance as well. Fall of Paradise was partially written back in 2011-2012, so I have the beginnings of a manuscript to work on for that story as well. The other dozen or so books I had planned? Well, they may someday show up as a collection of short stories, but for now, they will remain in my head as a pleasant and entertaining piece of my childhood.

Aside from extended outlines, step one for fixing some of the issues I had with the original copies has been rebuilding the map that goes with the stories. My husband and I discovered a wonderful map-creation tool called Inkarnate thanks to our D&D campaigns. We got the yearly Pro subscription to this incredible program which includes commercial use, so one thing you can expect in the rewrites of this series will be a much more organized and consistent map for reference. Here’s a first look at what I’ve drafted so far:

There are definitely still some revisions to be made as I comb the old copies for locations and lore and organize everything accordingly, but I’m liking how it’s coming along so far.

I’ll probably spend most of October doing prep work. With NaNoWriMo around the corner, this may just be an opportunity to buckle down and really get this ball rolling. Happy October, folks! May it be a wonderful and productive month for every one of you!

Silence is Golden: Character Development in Legend of Zelda

Currently listening to: Breath of the Wild OST

Recently I managed to get my hands on a copy of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and as I have been playing through the game, one thing in particular has fascinated me: the characters. This became especially true for me after finishing the Vah Ruta arc, and I couldn’t help but share some of the things I’ve noticed so far that I feel have particular value for those of us who endeavor to be writers.

For any who are concerned about spoilers, I’d suggest reading this post after you’ve played the game. For those who are just curious about my musings, here they are.

I was first introduced to the Legend of Zelda back when I was around 14 or 15 years old. The game series had been out for a long time, but I didn’t have access to any Nintendo consoles. As such, my exposure to the series was limited almost entirely to what I heard from my friends at school, with the exception of the Ocarina of Time mangas I picked up at the bookstore.

Twilight Princess was the first in the series that I had a chance to play, as I would sneak in game sessions while over at my best friend’s house, but I never had a chance to play much of it myself. Still, I watched the playthroughs on YouTube and enjoyed the story for what it was.

I’ve always liked Link as a character. Zelda, I never had much interest in, as her character always seemed somewhat flat to me. The game was named after her, but it wasn’t her story. With Breath of the Wild, I was expecting much the same sort of feel as that of Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess. I was wrong.

While Zelda’s character development in the game is much more vibrant than I remember it being in either Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, the two characters that have really stood out to me so far are actually Link (the main character) and Sidon (the Zora prince).

Link

I have always been a fan of Link, ever since I first was introduced to the game series, and I can’t say his character is strikingly different from other renditions of him, but the thing that I wanted to mention about Link is actually how incredible it is that you can have a character who literally never talks. Or, I should say, who we never hear talk.

A regular aspect of Link in every Legend of Zelda game I’ve played or seen is that he is usually the only main character that has no notable dialogue, whether verbal or subtitled. This is equally true in Breath of the Wild. And yet, despite never really hearing his voice, we (or, at least, I) find him to be one of the most loveable characters of any story I have ever been exposed to.

As a writer, I get hung up on dialogue a lot. This is not to say, of course, that dialogue isn’t important, but if you look at how Link’s character is portrayed, clearly his dialogue is not what makes him the brave, loveable character he is.

There are two things I’ve noticed so far that really make Link stand out. The first and most obvious of those two things is the dialogue of the other characters. What Link says to the other characters is left almost entirely up to the player’s imagination, but what the NPCs say about and to Link tells you worlds about who he is supposed to be as a person.

The memory flashback of Link and Mipha, for instance, tells you almost everything you need to know about Link’s childhood and his relationship with the Zora princess. They are close friends. Mipha undoubtedly thinks of Link as more than a friend. We definitely get the sense that Mipha thinks highly of Link, though there is also mention that he was reckless and accident-prone even as a kid. Impa, either of the two researchers you meet earlier in the game, even the Zora king have positive reactions to Link’s return and give you clues as to how important he was before the Calamity, not to mention how loved and admired he was.

Though more subtle, Link’s character also comes out in his visual responses to what is happening around him. His eyes widen when he is surprised or he remembers something. Arms outstretched and body hunched, he’s ready for a fight. His most notable visual responses I’ve seen so far are in the flashback memory of the fall of Hyrule Castle, where a sobbing Zelda collapses into his arms. His reaction is awkward at first, but he eases into the embrace. His face remains somber, every bit what you could expect of a Hyrulian knight and Champion, but his body language is soft.

To sum it up, there are the two things I have noticed about writing in the character of Link. The first is that, when developing dialogue, consider whether or not it is absolutely necessary for the continuation of the story. After all, you don’t need dialogue to portray a character. When you do use it, however, make it powerful, and don’t neglect even the more minor characters. Even their reactions to your main character can have a big impact on character development.

Secondly, don’t forget about body language. This sort of falls into the “show, don’t tell” adage you will often hear in writing communities. Basically, the idea is that everything from a twitch in the eye to a bend in the knee can tell you worlds about who the character is if used correctly. It’s not just about the big, superfluous action scenes. The subtle movements of a character can be just as important.

Sidon

Sidon is the prince of the Zora who you meet in order to complete the Divine Beast Vah Ruta part of the main questline. For me, I got dragged into meeting him thanks to a collection of random Zora NPCs harassing me across the map of Hyrule saying that I should meet their prince on some bridge nearby.

At the beginning, I found Sidon to be an excessively annoying character. He’s weirdly chipper and has this thing he does where he gives Link some sort of thumbs up and a tooth twinkle at every opportunity. Basically, he was one of those characters I wanted to stuff back in the proverbial box and stamp “return to sender” on it.

Sidon is a major player throughout the Vah Ruta arc of the story, and despite his atrociously annoying quirk, he did grow on me over time. It was this aspect of the character I found fascinating: that a character so annoying could also be so loveable.

I still haven’t fully grasped what it is about Sidon that made his character grow on me, but as a writer, I find the idea intriguing. Sidon has this annoying quirk, and yet he’s so brave and passionate, you have to give him a measure of credit. He’s a bit awkward, sometimes repeating himself or talking very loudly, and by the end, you get the sense that there is a lot more depth to his character than was originally portrayed. He is the younger brother of the Zora princess, Mipha, Link’s close friend from before the Calamity and one of the Divine Champions. After Mipha lost her life in Ganon’s hijacking of the Divine Beasts, the title of heir fell to Sidon. Being so vastly different from his sister, however, Sidon has a lot to live up to, and in a way, you can see him struggling to keep up the strong façade, which perhaps is the real source of his annoyingly garish introduction.

In terms of writing, Sidon is a fascinating study of a character who can at once have both annoying quirks and loveable traits. In real life, I feel safe in saying we are all a “Sidon” at times. We all have our annoying quirks and loveable traits. Writing characters with both is what makes them real, but it’s especially important for an otherwise annoying character to have reasons for the reader to love them, too, or they become more of a hindrance in the story than a help.

There is so much more that could be said of the writing behind Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and maybe I will write about it again, but in conclusion, there is a reason why the series has lasted as long as it has, and I don’t think it’s just because of the gameplay. From the viewpoint of a writer, I feel like there is a lot that can be learned from a story as timeless as the Legend of Zelda, and that is especially true in the character development of some of the major players in Breath of the Wild, whether it be the use of dialogue and body language, or simply the art of making an annoying character loveable at the same time.

The Challenge of Book 2

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Back when I first started writing The Four Stars, there were a lot of things I never could have imagined. First and foremost, I never imagined that it would take not only a second but a third book to finish the story out; secondly, I never thought I’d ever be completely rewriting the stories after a 90 degree learning curve from my time in college; and on top of all that, I never thought it would take me 3-ish years to get to chapter 2 of the rewrite of The Secret of Erris.

I have to admit, I haven’t done much writing in those 3 years. Part of that has been simple adult life. Between work and other life commitments, I just haven’t figured out how to prioritize and find the time to sit down and write. There are other things, too, though. In college, I got spoiled to having access to a community of writers who would encourage and inspire me every time we met. Writing groups still exist outside of college, but I have discovered that they are few and far between, and they only meet on days that I can’t attend the meetings. And then there’s the real kicker: I just don’t have the confidence in my ability that I once had. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” After going for a while without writing, I have, at the very least, lost my confidence, if not my skill.

My life has settled down a lot recently (I’m married now, and I live a lot closer to where I work), and so in attempting to get myself back into gear for the umpteenth time since I published the second edition of The Four Stars, I have started reading more articles on writing.

The most recent article I have read – “Writing a Trilogy: Essential Tips for crafting a Three-Part Series” by Dan Koboldt – really hit home for me.

As Koboldt explains in his article, the first book of a trilogy is the easy part. It may not seem that way at first. After all, you’re building a world and a group of characters from the ground up. But the first book has no commitments. You have no rules to break yet because none have been established. You have no events or facts to remember yet because none have been revealed. You have no characters to present accurately because they haven’t been born yet. There are no time commitments, no reader expectations, no pressures.

Then comes the second book. Your world has been established. Your readers and characters have met. The next part of the story is waiting to unfold.

Now when writing, you have a whole new set of challenges. First, you have to remember what happened in the last book. Heaven forbid you’re like me and wait 3+ years to get this party started.

Then, you have to write the characters accurately. For a new writer, this may sound easy, until you realize that characters inevitably take on a life of their own, so the character you thought you were writing at the beginning of Book 1 may very well not be the same character by the beginning of Book 2. And your readers expect consistency.

And then there’s the whole plot issue. Book 2 is both a story in and of itself and a continuation of the plot from Book 1. And somehow, you have to balance both, while simultaneously setting up the story for Book 3.

Then, to top it all off, there are expectations of excellence. I think that, for me, that’s where it really gets me. I got a lot of positive feedback from the rewrite of The Four Stars. Now I’ve got to deliver on The Secret of Erris. And there’s always that risk that I will fail. Koboldt calls it the “sophomore slump,” or the “struggle to replicate the same magic in a second volume.” Being the perfectionist that I am, the fear of failing to deliver is crippling.

Luckily for me (and others like me), there are writers out there willing to share their wisdom, and for the formula of the second book in a trilogy, Koboldt puts it this way:

 When writing a trilogy, you need to continue the story from book one while escalating everything—conflict, tension and stakes—to pull readers along to the finale. Yet book two also needs to provide some satisfaction to readers. It requires a delicate balancing act, because you can’t get to the big ending until book three.

Since part one of a trilogy usually ends in a triumph, part two often features the antagonist’s devastating counterstroke. Look at The Empire Strikes Back, the second movie in the original Star Wars trilogy. The plucky rebels have won a major victory, but they still face a powerful enemy. This becomes apparent almost right away with the Empire’s destruction of the rebel base. We love the heroes, but they’re facing setback after setback. The wonderful dramatic tension that results from this is something to emulate when you’re writing a second installment.

It seems silly now, but despite my husband being a major Star Wars fan, I had never thought to sit down and analyze how the trilogies in the series were done. I don’t know that my writing will ever be Star Wars or Lord of the Rings quality, but at least this gives me something to visualize. And hopefully, as I study the classics and begin practicing my writing again, I’ll start to improve and be able to deliver a Book 2 equal to its predecessor.

 

When the Last Story is Told

Four days until NaNoWriMo starts, and I’m not sure yet if I’m excited or intimidated.

I was introduced to NaNoWriMo back in 2010, but I didn’t start participating until the following year. To date, I have yet to complete the 50,000 word goal. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing, though. As of this moment, my “Writings” file on my computer takes up just under 1.3 GB of space and contains 893 files. Of course, some of those files are cover art and some are plot/character/world notes, but I’d still say the writing takes up a notable portion of that number. Of the things I’ve actually tallied, I’ve written roughly 680,000 words since 2006. (And that doesn’t include the blogs, outlines, world lore, hand-written stories, and research papers that I’ve written over the years). And on top of that, I have a list of “want-to-finish” books that literally, if I were to finish one every 12 months (completely not realistic for the severely ADD me), I would still be 61 years old by the time I finished writing the last one. (And that would be dependent on a guarantee I wouldn’t come up with any other stories during that length of time).

As I’ve been mulling over this information, along with the thought of starting a brand new project when I already have three big ones I haven’t finished yet, the question came to me: When does a writer decide that they have told their last story?

I’ve heard it said that a writer is merely a person who has a story to tell. And though I definitely feel like I have stories to tell, I haven’t really been coming up with anything new recently. Maybe this isn’t a big deal to most people, but it’s a strange feeling to me, the person who, even just a few years, would tell a family member or friend, “Guess what,” and would immediately get the response, “You came up with a new story.”

It’s made me wonder, do writers run out of stories? Or is it merely because I have an overload of story ideas right now that I’m just too overwhelmed to come up with something new?

I don’t really have an answer, but I wonder if I’m the only one who has ever pondered this, or if it’s a more common question than I realized.

On the upside, there have been several highly successful authors who published their major works after the age of 40, so maybe this dry spell is just a chance for me to catch up and weed out all the ideas that would just fall flat on their faces. And in the meantime, I’ll probably use NaNoWriMo as a chance to propel those projects forward.

It’s All Perspective

Currently listening to “Book of Days” by David Arkenstone & Kathleen Fisher.

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This picture pretty much sums up my attempt at blogging yesterday. It also is, more or less, what I met when stepping out the door this morning. My life is never dull, that’s for sure.

I live on a small farm outside of Austin, TX. It’s the same piece of property that my family has lived on for the past 60 or so years, a place that is very near and dear to my heart, but somewhere in the mix of rushing to and from work (which is an hour away thanks to traffic) and my obsession with electronics (I have been having way too much fun with my MMOs and screen capture software as of late), I sometimes forget what a blessing (and endless source of entertainment) my rural life is.

There is only a small pasture that separates my house from my grandparents’ house, and because we are usually too busy to mow the acre or so of yard space around our house (the rest of the land is intended for pastureland), we usually end up bringing their cows and donkeys into the yard to do the job for us. Which would be fine, except that the rest of my family has taken great pleasure in regularly feeding the creatures treats, making them as much of a nuisance as an asset.

To add to the excitement of it all, recently one of our cats (the only one of three that was indoor-outdoor; the other two have been indoor all their lives) got injured in a fight with another cat, which has resulted in permanent house arrest (long story) and the “cone of shame,” much to his chagrin.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been very tired recently (part of the reason I couldn’t come up with anything to write yesterday), and today has been no exception. I dragged myself out of bed late this morning and spent a good portion of my time wandering around the house in a zombie-like daze trying to remember what it was I was supposed to be doing. (I am not, in any sense of the word, a “morning person”). By the time I did wake up enough to actually be coherent, it was almost time to leave for work.

I quickly threw some food into my lunchbox, gathered up my things, and headed for the front door when I noticed a little black shadow leering just behind the coffee table. It was our injured cat, Pepe, who decided early on in his recovery that he was through with house life and has been trying to make a break for the great outdoors ever since, cone-of-shame or no. This morning was no exception, and I could tell, judging by the look on that face peering at me from inside the reflector-rimmed, black fabric cone, that if I so much as cracked that door, he was going to make a run for it.

I was already running late by this point and definitely didn’t have time to try to herd a cat around our expansive yard, so I abandoned the idea of leaving the easy way, grabbed up my belongings and shoes, and hauled everything into the laundry room. It’s a slightly longer walk from that side of the house, but at least there’s an extra door on that end that separates the yard from the plotting inmate.

With the laundry room door closed and Pepe no longer a concern, I slipped on my boots, picked my stuff up again, and opened the door. It took about two seconds for a nearby cow to realize there was someone at the “treat door,” and the next thing I knew, not only was I balancing my belongings and trying to lock the door, but I was also trying to keep livestock out of the laundry room at the same time.

“No cows in the laundry room,” I scolded as I turned to head toward the car.

Then came the bleating of the goats nearby, who are also beggars in their own right, and by the time I had driven down to the end of the drive, opened the gate, parked on the other side, and closed the gate again, I couldn’t help but stop and laugh for a minute. What a way to start my day.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite sets of books – or, rather, audiobooks, because as we have previously established, I was not much of a reader as a kid – was the All Creatures Great and Small set written by British author James Herriot. Herriot had a way of making veterinary work and farm life seem infinitely entertaining, and I think I’m really beginning to appreciate that outlook on life now.

I’ve written before about how life seems different depending on how you look at it. I think I had forgotten this somewhere along the way between my first years in college and now, but as I was dodging animals this morning, I began to realize that part of the reason I had forgotten how to find the humorous side of life was because I was taking the little things for granted. Yeah, it’s a pain to dodge escapee cats and greedy livestock, but I don’t think I would want to live any other way. And if I can just keep thinking that way, I am sure there will always be a funny story to tell at the end of the day.

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It’s All Uphill Till the End

Currently listening to “Desire” by Do As Infinity.

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Today I had the pleasure of eating lunch with the library director for my undergrad university’s library, who was my supervisor during the four-ish years I worked in the library and is a personal friend of mine now. She had come to Austin for a librarian’s convention, and since I missed seeing her the last time I was in her “neck of the woods,” I definitely wasn’t going to miss the chance to see her while she was in my own hometown.

While waiting for our food to arrive, she told me about the convention and some of the things that were going on at the library, and I told her about my school and work. Somewhere along the way, we got to talking about writing, and she mentioned that she was considering trying her hand at creative writing. She then asked me what I considered to be the hardest part of the writing process.

I had to think about this one for a moment. Even for those of us who have an unhealthy addiction to writing, there are always times when we feel like the end product isn’t worth the struggle put into it. At least, I have yet to meet an author who has never had at least one day where he or she felt like it was a struggle just to get a sentence completed. What an author considers to be the “hardest part” of writing, however, varies widely from person to person and moment to moment.

After some thought, I told her that I thought probably the middle was the hardest part for me. And usually, it is. For me, I’m really good at coming up with ideas. I can concoct an explosive intro or a climactic and dramatic ending in my sleep, but that middle part…that’s where it gets me. And once I get to that middle part, writing begins to feel less like a hobby and more like a chore.

For a writer like me, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by that invisible mountain peak which is the middle of my story, all the details and intricacies that have to be crafted just right to smoothly transition from that grand beginning into that dramatic ending and somehow compel my audience to keep reading the whole way through. It is something that can easily become overwhelming.

I think that what keeps writers like me going forward through all of that, though, is the thought of how good we know it will feel when we finally finish that middle mountain peak and begin rolling like a freight train toward the end. The feeling of accomplishment when I finally hold that book in my hands makes all those hours of sweat and tears worth the effort, even though I inevitably forget how much effort goes into writing a quality piece when I start the next project and wonder, “Am I gonna ever get through this?”

So if you’re like me and struggling through the middle of your project right now, just remember that the end result will be well worth the effort put into it now. Also know that you’re not alone. Just keep moving forward until you see the other side.

Life Lens

Currently listening to “Lord of the Dance” by Cu Chulainn.

When I was a kid, it seemed that everything was a potential story. I could look at a cloud and see a unicorn or a dolphin take form in the rise and fall of the billowing white. I could drag a little wagon in circles around my grandparents’ house and imagine I was travelling the Oregon Trail. I could even pick up a couple of sticks and imagine that they were antlers that belonged to super magical talking deer. (Yeah, I was a special child…). Back then, there was nothing that seemed too silly…except for my older cousin’s logic, but more on that another day.

Over the last few days I’ve done several posts mulling over my recent inability to compel myself to write. There are a lot of factors that can affect a person’s ability to think creatively, and often more than one reason is the culprit. But overall, I’d say life in general is to blame.

Having been in love with writing since my earliest years, I must say that seeing myself slip away from my creative way of thinking has been both frightening and depressing to me. Instead of seeing unicorns and dolphins when I look up at a cloud now, I see visibly condensed moisture. No matter how hard I try, those dolphins and unicorns never take form for me. When I try to daydream, I rarely get very far before my mind tells me, “That’s illogical. That could never happen because of X, Y, and Z.” And eventually, I stop coming up with new material, because all I can see is the most basic and realistic version of what is in front of me.

I was thinking about this earlier today as I went with the youth group I help lead to a lake clean-up out on Lake Travis here in Austin, TX. We arrived early, while it was still relatively cool, (Texas version of cool, mind you), and then set out to comb the lakeshore for trash needing to be picked up.

About halfway into our cleanup, my group and I came across this.

On first glance, it was fairly obvious what this was: a boat that had gotten a bad leak in it and had subsequently been abandoned. I glanced at it and thought, “Well, that’s depressing,” before setting off after the rest of the group. Several feet away, though, I paused.

“Actually, that’s kinda cool,” I thought. “Maybe I’ll take a picture before I keep going.”

I fished around in my bag for my phone to take a picture, and as I began to position the image in my screen, I thought, “What if I used a lens filter? I wonder what this would look like then.”

And that’s when it hit me. To write well is to filter the world through a mental lens.

They say that everyone has a story to tell. It’s just that not everyone is able to filter that story through the lens of inspiration. I think children are able to filter their world more easily than those of us who have lived through years of disappointment, hurt, and struggle. Some writers never lose that sense of wonder, constantly filtering their struggles through a lens of what could be. I admire people like that.

For my part, I was raised in a family where you had to think realistically. Every choice I made came with a litany of questions of why I made the choice and a lecture on why or how I could have done better if I had been more realistic/done something differently. I think there is a very real and necessary place for realistic thinking, but when it becomes the focus, eventually the creative lens gets smudged and it becomes increasingly more difficult to see the world as anything more than a dreary panorama of cold, hard facts.

And so my conclusion on this thought? For those of us who may have been losing our creative way due to all the realistic thinking, it’s about time we take another look at life. That abandoned boat can either be just that – an abandoned machine – or it can be the mysterious and forlorn opening to a mystery of the lonely boat tied to the shoreline, waiting for a master that will never return. It’s all in how you look at it. Also, don’t be afraid every once in a while to tell your brain, “I don’t care if it can happen in the real world. It can, and will, happen in mine.”

I think it’s about time we reclaim that missing lens, before it shatters and ends up gone forever.

Living Description

Currently listening to “Cherry Blossoms in Winter” by the Yoshida Brothers.

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There’s a Studio Ghibli movie that seems to have been forgotten somewhere in the mix of all the fantasy and sword-wielding that exists in the world of anime, and its name is From Up On Poppy Hill. The story, set in 1960s Japan, centers around the everyday life of a young girl and her crush as they strive to save their clubhouse from being knocked down and replaced with a modern building.

The young heroine is surrounded by a wide range of interesting characters since she lives in and works at a boarding house. One of the characters living at the boarding house is Sachiko (pictured above), an art student who spends a good half of her time in the movie dragging herself out of bed. Why do I bring this up? Well, in one scene that stuck out very clearly in my mind, Sachiko groggily sits up, looks around, and mutters, “What day is it?”

I decided she was my long lost twin after that.

Somehow I forgot yesterday that it was even a new day and I missed a post, so I’ll try to make up for it here.

As I’ve mentioned before, I started working on my MLS (Masters of Library Science) degree this semester, and for one of the assignments, I was required to go to a library I had never been to before and compile a list of observations on it, ranging from the layout of the library to the type of people who came there. The kicker? I had to go to a library I had never been to before. The assignment isn’t due till later this month, but considering my tendency toward forgetting what day it is, I figured it would be better to turn the assignment in early than to end up doing the opposite.

With that in mind, I took the day off from work yesterday and drove to a nearby town to do my observation at the public library there. I spent some time roaming around the place and taking into account the way the library looked and the way the people there interacted with each other. Then I sat down and addressed the first question, which was, “What does the library look like?  Does it have aesthetic appeal, why or why not?”

I glanced around again, then began to jot down notes:

  • White walls
  • Metal shelves
  • Industrial-type lighting
  • Basic carpet floors
  • Chairs & tables mostly light-stained wood

I was working on this list when something suddenly occurred to me. In answering this first question, I was doing the very thing that I do for all my books: describing my world.

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Back when I was in high school, my AP English teacher assigned us the task of writing a descriptive “essay,” which was literally a descriptive scene of whatever variety we chose. Of course, me being the long-winded fantasy writer that I am, I wrote a several-page-long scene from a story I had been working on, finishing it in the course of maybe a day, while all my classmates struggled to come up with a paragraph. Finally, one of my friends came up to me and asked, “How do you do this?”

“Find a picture,” I had told her. “Ask yourself, what is going on in this picture? If you were there, what would you be hearing? What would you be feeling? What would you be seeing? What would you be tasting? Write these things down and put them into a paragraph. Pretend you are there and you are describing everything going on around you to someone who isn’t.”

For her, this helped a lot, and she was able to finish the assignment with very little trouble. To me, this seemed basic, but I do realize now that description is a lot more complicated for most people than it is for me.

It really depends on the type of writing you do, but description still ranks as one of the most important aspects of writing out there. You can have a great plot idea, but unless you can engage your readers, your project will never be more than words on a page to them.

I think that in an age where everyone is so accustomed to seeing their story on a screen, description through words is becoming a lost art. Every word, every punctuation mark has the potential to paint a picture in the reader’s mind, but that image is dependent on how those words and punctuation marks are arranged by the writer.

I remember visiting a historical house several years back, (it may have been the Mark Twain house, but I’m not sure), and while there, the tour guide told us that the furniture and decorations had been arranged as they would have been during the lifetime of the owner. This had been made possible, the tour guide said, because the people who had visited the house had described, in detail, the appearance and arrangement of everything from the sofa to the ash tray in their letters to friends and family members back home.

Now that is the art of description.

So how does that apply to us today? I think any writer, no matter how experienced, can benefit from doing what I did for my assignment and what those visitors of the past did in their time, which is learn to describe the environment around them, particularly those of us who specialize in fantasy, since the richness of our created worlds comes from our ability to take what we have seen and mold it into something we haven’t.

If you’re a writer, I encourage you to take a couple hours and explore your hometown. Take a walk through the historical district. Visit a coffee shop. Go to the public library. Then pull out a pen and paper or your laptop (I prefer pen and paper since I feel like ideas flow better that way) and describe what you see there. That way, someday your explanation will go from, “White walls, metal shelves, and industrial-type lightning,” to:

“The quiet hum of whispered conversations filled the air of the library’s main room. Young children giggled softly over newly-discovered books as older patrons tapped away at computer keyboards, while bright, early-afternoon sunlight filtered in through the glass doors leading into the lobby, glowing against off-white walls and painted metal shelves. The natural light of the day was offset only by the long, industrial light fixtures that hung above the stacks loaded with books.”

Any place, no matter how mundane, can become a story in and of itself if you use the right words.

Have any other suggestions for how to improve description? I’m always interested in learning new ways to improve my writing, so please feel free to share. And in the meantime, happy reading!

Concept: “Write Like You’re Already Famous”

Currently listening to “Still” by AbeMao.

Life has been a roller coaster ride for me for years, but it seems like since leaving college I have been in a series of dizzying spirals, especially when it comes to my writing. (If any of you have ridden Goliath at the San Antonio Six Flags location, you know exactly what I’m talking about).

It’s hard to believe how much time has passed since my last entry here on my blog, and I cannot apologize enough to my readers for that. But hopefully that’s about to change.

This fall I started two new endeavors:

  1. Grad School: I’m doing a Masters in Library Science (hopefully with a focus on either archives, academic, or research libraries).
  2. Freelance writing: I have never had much confidence in my writing abilities, but so far I’ve had no trouble with approvals on the projects I’ve done. More on that later, though.

For a while now I’ve been feeling a stagnation in my writing (I think I’ve written about that before, actually), but today, while working on an assignment for class, I noticed that I had a notification from Twitter. Now, I am, as most people know by now, woefully bad about keeping up with social media, but since getting a smartphone a year ago, the notification system has helped some with that. (Yay, technology!). The notification was telling me that several of the people I followed (a large portion of the people I follow on Twitter are writers like myself) had shared a post about a book called “Write Like You’re Already Famous.” The post contained an image with a quote on it that really struck me.

write like you're already famousView the post here: https://twitter.com/MisterSalesman/status/773109805032566784

I’ve noticed that somewhere in the grand scope of self-publishing, the doubts and stresses of life have slowly crept in. I had considered freelance writing in the past, but doubted that I could ever write anything worth paying for. (Which is silly, I suppose, since I have been paid for articles I’ve written in the past). And somehow that fear of failure has slowly transitioned into my personal writing as well. I believe most people call it “writer’s anxiety.”

This Twitter post, however, struck me. It suggests that in order to become a more successful writer, one should start by writing a 300-word blog post every day. For me, 300 words is not much (actually, I’ve already exceeded the 300-word goal with my rambling today). I don’t know why I never thought to try this before, but I’d say it’s worth a shot as a way of getting myself back into my writing, which I have missed a great deal.

So with that being said, I suppose I should get back to my homework, but I aim to be around here more from now on. To those of you who may be facing the same struggles as myself, I hope this little suggestion will encourage you as much as it has me. And maybe some day soon I’ll be able to do a review of the book as well. For now, best wishes to readers and writers alike. Cheers!