As I was driving home this morning from dropping off Ariel, I saw a tree whose leaves had begun to color. Though I know it’s early and this means that the tree is under stress, it also reminds me that autumn is around the corner.
Soon the hills and mountains that surround Chattanooga will be painted yellow, scarlet, and maroon. It’s like the trees are having one last party before they go to sleep for the winter. It means soon I’ll be sipping hot apple cider at night, snuggling under wool blankets, and enjoying chrysanthemum blooms. And it means I begin the wait to see snowflakes dancing in the air.
We don’t get much snow here in southeastern Tennessee, but just enough to have spontaneous city-wide holidays that make the wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas seem shorter.
But it’s still 90 degrees during the days, and I’m soaking in the warmth and telling myself that I’ll miss it in January. I looked out the window and saw a yellow leaf fluttering in the breeze. Sigh. Maybe fall is closer than I think.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Mind Mush
This post was supposed to be about characterization. I had it all planned out in my mind. I should’ve written it early, but I didn’t. Still, I started the post and got about two paragraphs into the post. And my mind was total mush. Of course, having a migraine at the time didn’t help. I can write with a bad cold or any minor illness, I can’t write (at least not well) with a migraine.
But the migraine didn’t cause the brain mush. It was a result of mind mush, stress, and really tired eyes. But the point of this blog post (am I making sense or is post-migraine fog interfering with my thought processes) is mind mush. Mind mush is that state of brain where you’ve been writing/editing/revising way too long and the words you’ve written look like Swahili. Normally, I’d take a break. Do something fun. Watch a movie. But this time I can’t. Gotta get this revision finished.
Oops, I forgot about the point. Here it is: How do you deal with Mind Mush? How do you sharpen your mind? Yesterday I tried the move-to-a-new-writing spot and read aloud. It worked until the end of the day, at which I was reading aloud and wasn’t even sure what I was reading. And I’m not asking only other writers, I’m sure students have suggestions. (Sadly when I was in college I was one of those students who kept regular hours and never pulled an all-nighter or even a past-midnighter so I have no experience to draw from.) Please do not recommend twenty cups of coffee—I do have to sleep afterwards.
I’m looking forward to your suggestions!
But the migraine didn’t cause the brain mush. It was a result of mind mush, stress, and really tired eyes. But the point of this blog post (am I making sense or is post-migraine fog interfering with my thought processes) is mind mush. Mind mush is that state of brain where you’ve been writing/editing/revising way too long and the words you’ve written look like Swahili. Normally, I’d take a break. Do something fun. Watch a movie. But this time I can’t. Gotta get this revision finished.
Oops, I forgot about the point. Here it is: How do you deal with Mind Mush? How do you sharpen your mind? Yesterday I tried the move-to-a-new-writing spot and read aloud. It worked until the end of the day, at which I was reading aloud and wasn’t even sure what I was reading. And I’m not asking only other writers, I’m sure students have suggestions. (Sadly when I was in college I was one of those students who kept regular hours and never pulled an all-nighter or even a past-midnighter so I have no experience to draw from.) Please do not recommend twenty cups of coffee—I do have to sleep afterwards.
I’m looking forward to your suggestions!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Writers' Quotes
Writing is my time machine, takes me to the precise time and place I belong.
~Jeb Dickerson
~Jeb Dickerson
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Dangers of Boredom
I’ve always heard that it’s dangerous to let a child get bored. I have discovered that a bored child will try to cut off his finger with a wire snips. A bored child will paint black tiger stripes on his face that will not come off before Sunday church service. And a bored child will take fish out of the fish tank so they can watch television with him. It’s best to prevent boredom in children.
But children aren’t the only who succumb to boredom. It is the bane of chemists too. I’ve wondered how come I’ve known so many chemists in my lifetime. In our small church we have a scary percentage of the congregation that are chemists, chemistry professors, or chemistry majors. A bored chemist can curl your hair, literally. One chemist friend got bored in grad school and burned off his eyelashes and eyebrows. Unintentionally, of course.
Blowing up things is also extremely popular. One of Luke’s profs got bored and blew up a lake. I guess it’s one way to make the sky rain fish. Unfortunately, the police got involved.
Luke, our chemistry major son, is a teaching assistant in a chem lab, which was recently re-opened after being gutted. One day the prof and Luke got bored. They realized that they’d never tried the new eyewash/shower. (If you a non-science person, it’s the place you go when things explode and your eyelashes, eyebrows, and clothing begin burning off.) Anyway, Luke and his prof decided they had to make sure eyewash/shower functioned properly. Besides they were interested in how the new piping worked. So they pulled the cord. The water coursed through the pipes and spat out the valves and onto the floor. At which point, they discovered that the floor didn’t have a drain. Not long afterwards they discovered a mop and were no longer bored. I’m hopeful they stay very busy for the rest of the year. Perhaps they should study English. English majors/profs are never bored—there are always more books to read.
But children aren’t the only who succumb to boredom. It is the bane of chemists too. I’ve wondered how come I’ve known so many chemists in my lifetime. In our small church we have a scary percentage of the congregation that are chemists, chemistry professors, or chemistry majors. A bored chemist can curl your hair, literally. One chemist friend got bored in grad school and burned off his eyelashes and eyebrows. Unintentionally, of course.
Blowing up things is also extremely popular. One of Luke’s profs got bored and blew up a lake. I guess it’s one way to make the sky rain fish. Unfortunately, the police got involved.
Luke, our chemistry major son, is a teaching assistant in a chem lab, which was recently re-opened after being gutted. One day the prof and Luke got bored. They realized that they’d never tried the new eyewash/shower. (If you a non-science person, it’s the place you go when things explode and your eyelashes, eyebrows, and clothing begin burning off.) Anyway, Luke and his prof decided they had to make sure eyewash/shower functioned properly. Besides they were interested in how the new piping worked. So they pulled the cord. The water coursed through the pipes and spat out the valves and onto the floor. At which point, they discovered that the floor didn’t have a drain. Not long afterwards they discovered a mop and were no longer bored. I’m hopeful they stay very busy for the rest of the year. Perhaps they should study English. English majors/profs are never bored—there are always more books to read.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Mockingjay
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins is released today!! (It's the final book in The Hunger Games triology.) I'll be waiting for the UPS/FedEx guy to deliver our copy. Except, of course, I'm working on my revision. Hmm. Maybe I'll use chapters of Mockingjay as bribe to get my own work done. I'm so not above bribery.
Anyone else as eager to read it as I am?
(I'm Team Peeta.)
Anyone else as eager to read it as I am?
(I'm Team Peeta.)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Taking Liberties
When I was a kid, airplane crash movies were popular. We didn’t watch too many. Not because my dad was a commercial pilot and we were afraid of what could happen to him. No. We didn’t watch them because of the monologue that would occur: “That’s a DC-10, the plane they showed earlier was an L-1011, and before that it was a MD-(whatever).” As the movie went on, we’d learn about how planes actually behave and why the movie company should have hired an aviation consultant. (I must’ve learned a lot because my dad wasn’t around when I watched Tom Hanks’s Castaway and I knew that the movie was an aviation disaster, and not because the plane crashed.)
A few weeks ago we were watching Proof (a rom-com, math-nerd movie), and the main character mentioned a formula for finding prime numbers. Ariel said, “That’s not true” and went on to give us multiple examples of why the formula was bogus.
I got to thinking about authorial liberties. A writing friend once asked me how I decide what to “make up” and what I refuse to make up. I try to nail historical details, which is a tremendous amount of work. I even change the plot if I can’t find out the detail I need. I suppose I could argue that since my book’s about time travel I can make up other things too. But I can’t. In order for the book to work, I have to get the reader to suspend disbelief. The reader must trust the writer—verisimilitude is the way to do it. If I screw up an historical reference, I lose that trust. In fact, a few months ago I discovered a source that proved a small, but critical, detail in my novel was wrong so I rewrote the entire section.
However, some things I’ll make up completely. In one of my books, I gave a minor character a job assessing rattlesnake populations for the forestry department. Did I look up that job? No. I made it up. I did research the forestry department and rattlesnake populations, and I figured that someone must have a job doing that. Why not my character?
A while back, I read an author who was asked about the liberties he took in his novels. I believe he was known for his closely detailed settings of Los Angeles. He said that he tries to nail all the details perfectly. But if he needs a restaurant on a particular corner, he puts it there—but it better be exactly the kind of restaurant you’d find at that particular intersection.
What about you? What kinds of liberties do you take as a writer? What kind of liberties do you allow as a reader before you put the book down?
A few weeks ago we were watching Proof (a rom-com, math-nerd movie), and the main character mentioned a formula for finding prime numbers. Ariel said, “That’s not true” and went on to give us multiple examples of why the formula was bogus.
I got to thinking about authorial liberties. A writing friend once asked me how I decide what to “make up” and what I refuse to make up. I try to nail historical details, which is a tremendous amount of work. I even change the plot if I can’t find out the detail I need. I suppose I could argue that since my book’s about time travel I can make up other things too. But I can’t. In order for the book to work, I have to get the reader to suspend disbelief. The reader must trust the writer—verisimilitude is the way to do it. If I screw up an historical reference, I lose that trust. In fact, a few months ago I discovered a source that proved a small, but critical, detail in my novel was wrong so I rewrote the entire section.
However, some things I’ll make up completely. In one of my books, I gave a minor character a job assessing rattlesnake populations for the forestry department. Did I look up that job? No. I made it up. I did research the forestry department and rattlesnake populations, and I figured that someone must have a job doing that. Why not my character?
A while back, I read an author who was asked about the liberties he took in his novels. I believe he was known for his closely detailed settings of Los Angeles. He said that he tries to nail all the details perfectly. But if he needs a restaurant on a particular corner, he puts it there—but it better be exactly the kind of restaurant you’d find at that particular intersection.
What about you? What kinds of liberties do you take as a writer? What kind of liberties do you allow as a reader before you put the book down?
Friday, August 20, 2010
Shakespeare
Our kids love acting. They were recently in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Here are some photos. Notice the cool costumes--I made the boys' and Ariel sewed her own.
Ariel played Rosalind and also performed in a string trio before the play.
Jacob played Oliver--the bad guy in the play. But it's okay because he's reformed by the end.
Luke was the stage manager (he's too old to participate anymore). However, when an actor dropped out, Luke eagerly took his place as well as managed the stage.
Matthew played Touchstone. He needed a motley coat. Blue and green was as "motley" as Matt was willing to go.
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Ariel played Rosalind and also performed in a string trio before the play.
Jacob played Oliver--the bad guy in the play. But it's okay because he's reformed by the end.
Luke was the stage manager (he's too old to participate anymore). However, when an actor dropped out, Luke eagerly took his place as well as managed the stage.
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