Reaching for Details in Fiction

When I think, I think in broad, sweeping strokes, always attempting to see the whole essence of a thing at a glance.  To me, details are small, brightly-colored specks of dust that will float in one side of my brain and out the other unless I can fit them into a larger framework.  In my mind, details have their proper place, but its not first place.

However, the problem with this method when it comes to writing fiction is that I can have the overarching plot and purpose of a story in mind, but because those larger concepts have nothing tied to them, the story feels like it lacks substance.  Good stories and good prose are rich in detail.  Without them, whatever the author is trying to say floats above our heads like a lofty cloud which we can see but cannot touch.  So then, when big-picture people like me write, we have to reach through the fog of what we’re trying to say in order to grasp the details hidden within it. 

So, the question becomes, how do we reach for details? 

Here are a few tricks that can apply to almost everything:

1. What Things?

While we are still alive, we experience everything big and intangible through things that are small and tangible.  We experience love through warm hugs, uplifting words, and unexpected gifts.  We experience rejection through unanswered phone calls, condescending laughs, and refusal to make eye contact.  Other people can tell you are angry by your raised voice, frowning brow, and harsh words.  Other people can tell you love to read by the frequent stops at the library and the paperback that’s always in your purse. 

We see the big things in life by looking at the small things.  So what things?  Find the specifics that tell a larger story. 

2. Color

Everything that can be experienced with the eyes has some kind of color.  Even if the color of something isn’t that important, you still want to give people an impression of whether something was light-colored or dark-colored.  The story may not be about what things look like, but humans are primarily visually-oriented, so we must give our readers’ human brains something to work with.  And color is huge. 

For example, I believe it is very important to state a character’s hair color right away – especially if the character is female, since female characters tend to have more hair.  This is because hair color has a dramatic effect on the way the character looks, even if they’re portrayed in a black-and-white movie.  I’ve discovered the hard way that it’s very difficult for me to reimagine a character as being blonde if I’ve already imagined them as being brunette.  It’s not really about the color as much as its about whether the hair is light or dark.

The light/dark dynamic holds true for what kind of day it is (sunny or cloudy), what kind of clothes a character is wearing, what the inside of a building is like, how a landscape looks, and many other things.  If you’re in a hurry, you don’t have to include much more detail than that – but at least give your reader somewhere to start in imagining the scene. 

3. Shape / Size

Short or tall?  Large or small?  Wide or narrow?  Curved or straight?  Flat or three-dimensional?  Cubic or spherical?  Yes, these are basic things that sound like they came straight out of the grade-school lesson where you first learned about adjectives, but basics remain basic because they are foundational, and give a lot of information in a little space. 

4. What tells the most?

Find the extra things that say the most about an object, place, or person.  Is the baseball smudged with dirt?  Is the coat of paint fresh and flawless?  Is the pine forest scraggly?  Does the mansion have a large picture window that looks out over the valley?  Is the man’s hair ruffled the wrong way because he’s been running his hands through it in frustration? 

Reaching for a poignant detail takes practice – and it helps to practice by starting with other details.

Putting it Together

I believe you can start practicing hunting for details before you actually try to write something.  The act of pushing through the vague ideas to something definite will help strengthen the part of your brain that gives you the words to write. 

So, let’s do an exercise, putting these four detail-finders into action. 

I’ll start with an assertion – I am a writer. 

Really?  How would someone know that?  What things say this is so?

I always have a notebook and some pens in my bag that I take everywhere. 

OK, notebook, pens.  Two good details, but that’s only the surface.  What kind of notebook?  What kind of pens?  Do they have colors? 

A green notebook, a blue pen, a purple pen, a black pen, and a pencil. 

That’s a little better, but we still don’t know what kind of things these are.

A bright-green 5-subject notebook, blue and purple ballpoint pens, a black liquid-ink pen, and a mechanical pencil.

Now we’re getting somewhere.  A few more clarifying details will demonstrate what exactly are my relationships with these items. 

A large, worn 5-subject notebook with a swirling vine doodled on the cover in faded sharpie, accompanied by two smooth-writing, click-top ballpoint pens in blue and purple, a fine-tipped, black liquid-ink pen, and a deluxe mechanical pencil with a twistable eraser on top.

Now we know just about everything about what writing materials I use when I’m on the go.  We’ve described my notebook and my pens exactly as one would first experience them.  However, we’ve spent more time talking about the pens, and less time talking about the most interesting part, the notebook.  Since the notebook is more likely to say more about who I am, we can trim down the description of the pens, and then we’ll have space to say what the inside of the notebook is like.

A large, worn 5-subject notebook with a swirling vine doodled on the cover in faded sharpie – filled with pages of writing interspersed with the same swirl designs.  One section is mostly made up of freeverse poetry, and in the back a page covered in anime faces can be right next to a page with a much more realistic sketch of an actor from a geeky TV show. 

Now we’ve taken a step beyond knowing what materials I use to write, to knowing a lot more about ME and what I’m like.  (Being the private person I am, I’ll stop feeding you details at this point, if you don’t mind.)

As you’re practicing the art of coming up with details, start with details from your own life.  Dig into the objects you care about the most and find out what about them says the most about you.  When you see how detailed your own life is, you can begin to give your characters and their lives a similar amount of detail.

Here is an exercise to help stretch the detail-muscle, whenever you feel it begin to atrophy:

List of Things

Make a list of things (including places and people).  They don’t have to be related to each other – in fact, it’s better if they are not.  They just have to be definite, concrete things that you can experience with at least one of your five senses – and it’s much more fun if you pick things you like.

There are a couple catches, though:

1. They cannot be objects/people that are in the same room you are in (and it certainly can’t be the same place).

2. If you do list an object/person/place that you are familiar with, change it in some significant way.

3. You must use more than one word to describe each object/person/place.  Say exactly what kind of something it is. 

With #1, say you are sitting in your kitchen writing, and you have with you a small mug of green tea with blue flowers on it.  You can still list ‘mug of tea,’ on your list, but it cannot be the same mug of tea.  It must be a big, brown mug of tea with a white polka-dot design on it, and the tea must be Earl Grey.  You see what I mean?  You must use your imagination.  Make something up.  Once you’ve made it up, take a moment to visualize what it would be like, sitting here writing with a completely different mug full of completely different tea. 

Try to make the items on your list very different from one another.  Now that you’ve written down a mug of tea, try thinking of a place.  How about a garden?  Yes, but what kind of garden?  Not the little vegetable garden with tomatoes and cucumbers you plant in your back yard every year.  Perhaps a flower garden – a rose garden, specifically, filled with roses of the most delicate shade of pink.  And this garden isn’t a small garden – it’s a big garden, with fountains and little stone benches to sit on.  A royal garden. 

Now let’s try a person – a pastor, perhaps.  My pastor is short, white-haired, and clean-shaven, so let’s instead imagine a young pastor, tall and lanky, with close-cut blond curls and some feeble attempts at a goatee.  (This would probably be a youth pastor, not a senior pastor – but what if he was the senior pastor?  What kind of church would he be pastor of?) 

Keep making the list.  Don’t stop until the page is full.  Some of the things you come up with may bore you, but keep going.  Don’t be afraid to make things wild and extravagant, if you have to.  But be specific.  Mention things that will raise questions.  Why does the plumber read so many books on World War I?  Who on earth decided the mansion should be painted that shade of purple?  Is there a reason the trees on the ridge are sickly? 

Reach.  Reach a little farther than you ‘have to.’  You can always take out details later, and it’s a beautiful thing to have a wealth of specifics to choose from.

What About The Children?

There are times when you come across a thought which may not strike you with realization in the moment, but which rolls around in your mind for years and then, one day, emerges from the midst of your musings and bears fruit.  

So I must say that everything that follows is indebted to Madeleine L'Engle and her observations from her book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, which I read a couple years ago.  I didn't agree with everything in the book, but there were several thoughts in it that were helpful, and the one I found most helpful was this:

In one of the chapters, Mrs. L'Engle relates a story in which her husband, an actor, was trying to decide whether or not to accept a role in a certain play.  The play was edgy enough to make them uncomfortable, but it paid well and they desperately needed the money.  As they wrestled with the decision, eventually her husband came up with the question, "Would I want the children to see me in this?"  After asking that question, he realized he would never want the children to see him in that role, so he turned it down.  

Mrs. L'Engle goes on to say that the question stuck in her mind ever after, whenever she was trying to make a difficult decision about what was and was not acceptable in art -- "What would I want the children to see?"    She says that children can understand a lot more than we give them credit for, and can understand many of the difficult issues of life if we take the time to explain them.  But there are things that children shouldn't see, things that will hurt them instead of helping them.  When we make art, we may make things that are beyond a child's ability to comprehend fully, or that will require a bit of thought before a revelation materializes, but we should never make something that will hurt them.  

This thought originally fell into the "Oh, That's Nice" category in my mind.  I didn't realize at the time that if we are looking at it right, it really is an illuminating standard.  Frequently when I have looked at an aspect of the culture – or American Christianity, for that matter – that I felt had something wrong with it that I couldn't quite pinpoint, an application of the simple question, "What about the children?", suddenly made everything clearer.  

What about the children?  

We've forgotten about them, haven't we?  

Our culture remembers to deal carefully with many things – it has to, living in this lightning-quick era where anyone can get offended at the drop of a hat.  But in the midst of overthinking so many trivial issues, it's managed to forget a number of the most important things.  Children are one of them.  

We've not just forgotten about our specific children, living their growing-up lives and turning into adults whether we're watching or not.  We've forgotten about children as a concept.  I would argue that most of the time, we don't even remember what they are.  We put everyone under the age of 12 or so into a box labeled 'Child.'  Around age 13 they are scooped out of that box and dumped into the 'Teenager' box, where they stay until they are shipped off to live in the 'College' box, and finally once they return from this box they will have the education necessary to settle into the 'Adult' box.  The problem with this system is that once we have everyone properly organized, we tend to start dealing almost exclusively with the boxes, and not with the people in them.  It enables us to forget the most obvious and ordinary thing in the world: that every adult was once a child, and every child is an adult in the making.  The two are inseparable, because they are the same being in different forms.  The thoughts we give the child to chew on will be the thoughts the adult will rely on.  A child's mind starts small and grows to adulthood by eating whatever it can find – the adult mind will form, by itself, constructed out of whatever thought-materials happen to be nearby.  

This means that, contrary to popular yet unspoken belief, children have a great capacity to begin to understand the most important things in life from a very early age.  Because the minds are young and small and not yet fully-formed, the knowledge about life and death and other things doesn't come front-first or logically, but it still comes.  Children observe and absorb and can reach startlingly profound conclusions because they are paying attention, even if the adults around them are not.  This is why adults must pay attention from the beginning, because by the time the children are ready to be moved to the 'Teenager' box and modern society tells us that now at last we can give them real things, it may be too late.  The children have already learned an alarming number of real things, whether right or wrong, and those thoughts will bear fruit for years and years to come.  By giving them little more than 'age-appropriate' fluff until we deem them 'ready,' we are harming them and robbing them of the foundation-forming thoughts their young minds need.  

Is it not, in a way, insidious to save our more complicated themes in literature, TV, movies, and the like for works that are only appropriate for older age groups, when they are desperately needed to begin molding the thought life of the younger generation?  

My thoughts on this topic are still growing, but the more I look, the more I see that the most-forgotten people group in our culture may very well be our own children.  And considering that we were once children, and our children will someday be us, that means we are hurting ourselves.

Artists vs. Non-Artists

I consider myself an artist.  But whenever I start to talk about ‘artists’ apart from the I-mess-with-paint definition, people start to get uncomfortable.  The term ‘artist’ in this culture carries with it a picture of elitism and snobbishness.  This is because most artists tend to be elitists and snobs, and take great pleasure in corrupting the next generation of artists with the same we-are-special beliefs.  But I believe the artists have done a great disservice to their own name.  The word ‘artist’ used in the abstract is a useful term, and I for one would like to be able to use it without sounding condescending. 

So, for the record, here is my view of artists and their place in the human race.

Artists are not better than other people.  In fact, they are frequently much worse, since by adopting the vaunted label of ‘artist’ many artistically-inclined people feel they now have permission to let all their vices run wild – particularly pride, which is the most odious of all the vices. 

Artists do have a special understanding of beauty and creativity.  But while that may be our blessing, we are constantly dogged by our curses.  We have great gifts, but we also have such great weaknesses. 

And isn’t that the story of everyone? 

No one has yet mastered the trick of being a complete and perfect human being.  When we are born there is written on our souls somewhere a list of all the things we could be and do, all the ways in which we can be human, all the fascinatingly beautiful things that make life worth living.  But as we grow, we grow lopsided.  I think that’s part of the curse – some things that others find hard will come to us naturally, and some things that to others are easy will, inevitably, be painfully difficult for us.  We can pour ourselves into one thing or many things, but there will never be enough time, energy, and talent for us to grow strong in everything.  

However, that means we all have things we can teach each other.  Yes, we have our great leaders, great scientists and explorers, great organizers, great teachers, great husbands and wives and parents, great healers, great counselors, great artists* – people who have pursued their gifts to the fullest.  But regardless of our gifts, each of us should try, in our own ways, to learn to explore, to teach, to organize, to counsel, to heal, to lead, to create.  When we stretch ourselves in the things that don’t come naturally, we discover more ways to live.  In a sense, we become more human.

An artist, then, is one who teaches beauty and creativity, because that is his gift and that is what he has to give.  A wise artist must guard the truth that creativity is for everyone, that no one has a monopoly on beauty, that these things are a part of being human that should not be fenced off by elitism.  And an artist must remain humble before those who have strengths where he has weaknesses -- which is everyone, really -- and always be willing to learn more about the mystery of living. 

---

*I mean these outside the strict occupational definitions of the words.  

2013: Resolution Showcase

I'm having trouble cutting my list of resolutions down to 13.  (You know, 13 for 2013?  Well, yes, maybe a little cheesy...)

So, instead of fighting with it, I'm just going to showcase the resolutions that I'm most excited about!

1. Write 50 blog posts.  Blogging more is forever on my list of things I would love to do if I had more time and motivation.  No surprise there, right?  However, this year I decided to add a number to it.  50 posts a year averages out to about one post a week, which is very doable...and it's a small enough goal that if I get to the end of October and find I haven't posted all year, I can probably still make it.

2. Keep a reading journal.  In 2011, I read 53 books.  In 2012, I read 25 books.  Now, the reason for the drastic difference in the number of books read between the two years, besides the fact that 2012 ended up being one of the most eventful years of my life, was that I was dismayed at how much I failed to retain from the books I read in 2011.  As I look through the list of those 53 books, I found an alarming number that I feel I need to reread, simply because I remember that they were good and not much else.  Yesterday, though, one of my dear friends suggested I start a reading journal.  She said that if you respond to what you're reading, either in the margins of the book or in another notebook, you retain so much more.  I need this -- not so much for the fiction I read, but definitely for the nonfiction.

And along those same lines...

3. Form a reading habit.  I've noticed there seem to be two types of readers: those like me who read randomly, whenever they feel like it, and those who read consistently at a certain time of day (typically every night before bed).  I've noticed over the years that readers like me don't seem to read as much as they transition into adulthood, while the consistent readers continue to consume books regularly and don't seem to be hindered as much by an adult schedule.  I want reading to be a life-long habit, so I'll see if I can adopt the every-night-before-bed method.

4. Draw a little something every day.  This Christmas, most of my gifts to relatives were handmade bookmarks.  I had originally intended to do mini collages out of magazine clippings, but in the end I drew all the pictures I used.  And I discovered, much to my surprise, that I can draw much better than I think I can -- all I need to do is try.  Before Christmas, I would never have thought I could draw an elephant or a cocker spaniel.  But now I know better, and I believe I need to spend some serious time growing this skill.  Even if it's nothing more than a random doodle, I need to put pen to paper every day and keep the artist awake.

5. Journal consistently.  Much like #1 and #2, only more private and more me and much more random.

6. Write 10,000 words every month (for a total of roughly 120,000 words at the end of the year).  Not quite sure about this one yet.  It sounds pretty ambitious.  But at the same time, I NEED to write more, and 350 words per day really isn't bad.  These words don't have to all be fiction, either.  I want to write more about art, cultural and moral issues, personal reflections, and other things.

I am really excited for the chance to pursue all these things this year.  And the best news is, I can start now!  So, I'm off to read and journal and write and draw (maybe all at once).

Happy 12/12/12 Day!

When the hour struck 12:12 this afternoon, my mom and sister and I celebrated with peanut butter truffles.  :)    We also took pictures of the clock for posterity, which unfortunately I do not have on hand.

I have been spending this evening (at least pieces of it) trying to piece together a decent plot for my NaNoWriMo novel, which I have given the working title of The Lady in Gray.  (One discovers the value of titles when one has had to live without one for more than a month.)  The story needs a LOT of work before I  can even start writing prose again.  I am very out-of-practice when it comes to crafting a story, and it feels pretty overwhelming.  Oh well.  I've spent a lot of time in the past couple months learning more about the outlining process, and at some point there's nothing to be done but muddle through as best as I can.

I quit.

So, I decided to quit NaNoWriMo today.

This is my third year seriously attempting it (after winning in 2008 and 2009 and making false starts in 2010 and 2011).  I planned for most of October to do it, but after trying to plan one idea I had and rereading everything I could find about outlining and plot structure and the like, I still started November with nothing but a vague handful of ideas about where I was going.

Due to the fact that I was starting off with a horrible disadvantage, I gave myself permission to include my plotting-words in the word count.  Which helped a lot.

So, good news: I now have 27,000 words, a fair portion of which is story, and most of the rest of which is plot plans for that same story.

For me, this is actually huge.  For a couple of years now my writing life has been stalling as I've tried to recover from burnout, and as I've held off committing to 'lesser' projects as I waited for the 'perfect' idea.  Hey, I'd even settle for the almost-perfect idea.  I considered myself pretty lax.  I didn't need to be Lord of the Rings Tolkien yet, I just needed to be The Hobbit Tolkien.  Deal, subconscious?

NaNoWriMo got me writing again.  It gave me the beginning of a story that I feel like I can commit to.  By forcing my writer-brain to come up with something, anything, my writer-brain discovered it could actually come up with something good.  Under pressure, no less.

But now, hopelessly behind as I am and with many, many questions about my story still unanswered (What does my main villain even want, anyway?), I think I've discovered the best way to invest in this story.

And getting to 50,000 words before midnight on November 30th seems like a pretty poor investment in comparison.

I'm definitely a planner when it comes to stories.  Sure, there are some things about my story that I like to discover as I write, but in the majority of cases I like to know where I'm headed.  I'm not good at making a story up on the fly.  Especially a novel-length story.  I've heard all the Wrimo rhetoric for years about how you can always fix it later, but sometimes, you just can't.  And sometimes the bad version of the story inadvertently gets stuck in your head, so that even if the problems can be fixed, you no longer care to try.  Call me a mystic if you will, worrying about losing the 'magic' of the story.  I don't think it's mysticism.  I think it's an honest assessment of the way my overly-impressionable mind frequently creates roadblocks for me.  Don't get me wrong, I don't expect my first drafts to be perfect.  But I expect them to have the soul of what I'm trying to say.  I'm not sure you can edit soul into a novel that never had it in the first place.

I want to breathe life into the story.  I don't want to settle for making as many mud pies as I can in the mud wallow of ideas.

Now, putting words on paper is useful, and reaching for a goal even when it's difficult is an admirable thing.  There is a significant part of me that wants to reach that magic number of 50,000, to say I won.  But I've burned myself out before.  Repeatedly, in fact -- refusing to listen to the warning signs until I'd drained myself of every last drop of motivation to write.   That ultimate burnout lasted for three years.  I'm just now coming out of that.  I'm a fool if I jeopardize this rediscovered creativity for a number.

Because if I stop here, I've won what's most important.

...

(And that, friends, is the slightly-melodramatic version of why I'm quitting NaNo.)

(Instead of feeling sorry for me, think how happy I am finally getting to read all these books I got from the library!)

Books! Music! Knitting! Me! (But no Doctor Who...)

A few days before vacation is not a good time to realize your blog is abandoned and start posting again.  Oh well.

My recent life (in a numbered list!):

1. I've been staying away from Facebook and Tumblr as much as possible so as to avoid any spoilers for the new series of Doctor Who.  I'm one of the poor souls who does not have BBC America and must wait.  Oh, the agony.

2. What I'm currently reading:

• Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal.  Really enjoying this one, especially after listening to the author on Writing Excuses for a while.  It's a Jane Austen-esque regency romance, only with magic.  I do feel a little guilty reading it, since I've never actually read a Jane Austen book.  (I've seen plenty of the movies, though!  Sense and Sensibility, Emma, THREE versions of Pride and Prejudice...)  
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.  As much as I claim to love the fantasy genre, I haven't read much of the 'classic' fantasy stories.  I find myself drawn in by a vivid world and a masterful writing style.  In fact, I think I would like to do a blog post on this book at some point in the future, because I think it stands in defiance of the 'rule' that in writing one must show and not tell.  
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.  I haven't opened it in several weeks, to tell the truth.  But, since it is the fattest book ever, I decided things would work out nicely if I bought myself a used copy and took it on a roadtrip.  Take that, Kansas!  

3. Not doing school is nice.  Still trying to find a new mode of operation, but it's good.  

4. What I've been listening to: 

• The Midsummer Station, the latest album from Owl City!  It makes me very happy.  
• The soundtrack for the Broadway play The Scarlet Pimpernel.  (Rather addicting.  Not recommended for all listeners due to lyrics that hint at adult things, but nothing's perfect.)  
• The NEEDTOBREATHE song Keep Your Eyes Open.  Sort of my mantra for this season in my life.  

5. If I'm a good girl I'll switch over to a word document after I'm done with this post and work on some outlining.  

6. Coming up is the BIGGEST ROADTRIP EVER!  (Excited?  Me?  Maybe a little bit...)  New places!  New things to see!  New TREES!  I plan on taking lots of pictures, but not so much that it keeps me from seeing everything.  Also, I will probably knit a lot in the car.

7. ...knitting, yes.  I've decided that from now on I will randomly make scarves and throw them at people.  (Eh.  Second part is optional.  Still working out the kinks in the plan.)  

Seven is a very nice number, so I'll stop there for now.  If you know spoilers for Doctor Who, DO NOT TELL ME.  Because you know, I am making scarves.  I might just throw one at your head.  You have been warned.  

Magika // Tuesday for the Muse

First, two things:

1) Yes, I know the name of the group sounds like the scariest rock band ever.  They're not a rock band.  And they're not scary.  

2) And yes, it sounds like the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack.  Doesn't mean it's not amazing.  Just have a listen, and enjoy the music for what it is.  Which is pure inspiration, in my opinion.





Many thanks to my friend Anna F. for sharing this with me on Facebook!
Most disappointing thing about this song?  It's not available for purchase.  Don't these people know I would so happily give them money?

I Believe in an Objective Reality

My favorite book on writing is Ayn Rand's The Art of Fiction, which I posted a book review of back in 2011.   I'm not a writer that's into writing fiction for fiction's sake.  While I love writing stories, I can't write a good one unless I feel that there's some point to what I'm doing, other than my own amusement.  I want people to get something out my stories besides just entertainment.  That's just who I am.  And because of that, Ayn's book spoke to me more than any other writing book I've read.  She tells you how to focus everything in your story on making the point you want to make.

So, naturally, I was curious when I saw an article titled "Why Even Ayn Rand Can Teach You Something About Writing." 

Even Ayn Rand.  Well, that's generous of you.

Mostly, the article is about Why Ayn Rand Can't Teach You Anything About Writing At All.  Oh, and she hates humanity.  And is boring.  Actually, the only benefit the writer of the article believes can be derived from reading her book is the opportunity to practice working past a state of rage so that you can then prove why she's wrong.

He complains about Ayn's writing all the way down to her prose style, but it's obvious that what he really objects to is her philosophy, Objectivism, which she's not at all shy about espousing.  I don't agree with Objectivism because it's a godless school of thought, but it's important to realize that Objectivism and Christianity are on the same side in one very crucial battle.

You see, both believe in an objective reality.

This means that both Christians (if they're worth their salt) and Objectivists believe that reality exists apart from our perceptions of it.  We either perceive reality correctly or we don't.  Two directly-conflicting views of the world can't both be right.  Not all views are equally valid.  They are valid in so far as they line up with the reality that exists outside of all perceptions.  Truth is solid and cannot be changed.  It exists.  If it contradicts itself, it is not truth.

Most intellectuals do not believe in an objective reality anymore.  They demonstrate this in the art they create and value: books with made-up words, art that destroys boundaries between things, films that tear down the notion of reality.  Rarely will they come out and voice this core belief, but it's here, plain to see, in their hatred of a writer who believed that words should have concrete meanings.

No, I don't think books should be 'preachy.'  But I'm willing to use my fiction to say that some things are of greater value than other things, that the universe has meaning that we can understand, that there is right and wrong, truth and falsehood, lines that should not be crossed, ways we should live.

Can you believe it's come to this?  That we're considered old-fashioned for believing in reality?  

All of Me // Tuesday for the Muse

I debated whether or not I should post another song from The Piano Guys, but in the end I couldn't help it -- this is the song I've been listening to the most in the past two weeks, aside from Dementia, one of Owl City's new songs (which I love but which hardly seems appropriate for an inspiration-themed feature).  
I'm an odd duck when it comes to music.  Unless I'm in a specifically experimental mood, I tend to only listen to the music that I already know I like.  As this blog testifies, I've been happily listening to music from The Piano Guys for the past month, but there are still a number of songs of theirs that I haven't yet heard.  On top of that, I don't normally go for just-piano pieces.  While I like the piano well enough, and there are some things it does better than every other instrument, there's something about the sound quality that doesn't draw me in as much as, say, strings or woodwinds.  
One late night, as I was getting ready for bed, I decided I wanted another Piano Guys song.  I thought about the ones I had already listened to a number of times on Spotify, but nothing jumped out as being 'the one.'  (Yes, I buy my music on a need-to-have basis.)  On a whim, I clicked on the last track of the "Hits" album, All of Me, and before I was 10 seconds into the piece, I knew I was buying it.  
The expression in this song is deep and thoughtful while being blissfully happy, and it has that dancing/flying element I mentioned in my last post. To me, it speaks of discovery, of a jewel summer and a deepening friendship, of a hesitancy that slowly gives way to pure romance, of passionate creativity.  Whenever I listen to it, I see the face of someone with that look that says they're not in control anymore, and wouldn't have it any other way -- a blissful surrender to the amazing.  And what could be more amazing than God?  So yes, for me it is a faith-song.  Whenever people look at Christianity with fear -- fear of being trapped, fear of loss of control -- I wish I could have them listen to this song, and show them that it's so much more like this. 
Fear not: I will refrain from posting more Piano Guys songs until I absolutely cannot help it anymore.  In the meantime, enjoy.   

Anthem of Hope // Tuesday for the Muse

So I missed last week's Tuesday for the Muse because my life was absolutely swallowed up in graduation-induced insanity.  My apologies.  I didn't feel like posting Pomp and Circumstance in order to make a point about what my life was like.

This week I want to share one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists, Ryan Farish:





This song is another makes-me-feel-like-dancing song, but that because it also makes me feel like flying.  There are two different types of dancing, I think: dancing where you just want to move however you can, and dancing where your soul is uplifted and you dance because you cannot fly.  This music inspires the latter. 

Anthem of Hope is on my inspiration playlist because when I'm trying to come up with ideas and scenes, I need music that is both high-energy and full of emotion.  I have plenty of music that has great energy but no direction, and I have a lot of movie soundtracks that have some beautiful emotion that occurs in brief 10- or 30- second intervals (usually couched within several minutes of music that, frankly, is rather boring).  But Ryan Farish's music is perfect because he finds a good melody and stays with it for the whole piece, long enough for my writer-brain to work through a complete thought. 

O Fortuna // Tuesday for the Muse

This week I got my Galaxy Player 4.0, which, aside from its many other wonderful features, automatically creates a playlist of your most-played songs.  Right now the song in second place (behind Peponi, which I posted about last week) is, yes, another song from The Piano Guys.  This poem is centuries old and was set to music in the 1930's by the German composer Carl Orff.  While the original version is pretty epic by itself...


...what The Piano Guys did to the song was just too amazing.  
For me, race cars don't really do the song justice, so I recommend you play the video, close your eyes, and let the music suggest its own theme.  
Lately I've had characters on my mind (both mine and other people's) that are centuries old, and whenever I play this song I see an immortal character wandering through ages, seeing the rise and fall of empires and religions, hope and love and so, so much loss.  Such a character would have more reasons than most to complain against fate, as did the writer of O Fortuna so many centuries ago.  
(And yes, it's almost Wednesday.  I know.  Sometimes surprise visits from delightful relatives happen, and blogging just has to wait.)

Peponi // Tuesday for the Muse

Today, I'm going to tell you something a little different: don't watch the video.  I mean yes, you can watch it, but I recommend that the first time through you just let it play with the window minimized.  When I tried to show this video to my sister, she wasn't able to really appreciate the music on the first go-round because of the 'weird dancing.'




This is, of course, The Piano Guys' cover of Coldplay's hit song Paradise.  Due to the somewhat eclectic circles I run in, I generally don't get much exposure to whatever music is currently popular.  I came across the song because I watched this awesome Doctor Who fanvid (warning for general spoilers for Series 5 and 6):


The song's been on my Spotify playlist ever since, but I haven't gotten around to actually buying it.  However, I can't get over the gorgeous instrumental arrangement in the Peponi version.  Every time I try to listen to it while doing something else, I inevitably stop in my tracks so that I can fully absorb it.  I feel like Peponi taps into a little more of the passion in the song, and because the words are in a language I can't understand, it's perfect music for writing.  
Speaking of writing music, I've been on a complete Piano Guys binge this week.  Their music is gorgeous (and will probably reappear in Tuesday for the Muse sometime soon).  If you're looking for instrumental music with great energy and emotion, I urge you to check them out.  

Amy in the TARDIS // Tuesday for the Muse

Now that I'm more than halfway through Doctor Who Series 5, I felt I could start listening to the first half of the soundtrack.  (I generally don't like to listen to music for episodes I haven't seen.  Somehow it feels like spoiler-hunting.)  This is my favorite song from the soundtrack so far, and I've been listening to it over and over again the past several days.  It plays during the scene where Amy first enters the TARDIS, and it conveys a strong sense of magic, of a long-held wish finally being fulfilled, a childhood dream gently becoming reality.  All of those are themes that resonate with me, which I think is why I like this song so much.  This track actually caught my attention while I was watching the episode, which in my world is a testament to how good it is.    Most Doctor Who music isn't written specifically to be lovely, but this piece is just lovely anyway.  
Now, to hunt around for a dollar so I can download it from Amazon...

Kingdom Dance // Tuesday for the Muse

Inspired by my friend Katie and her lovely fashion blog Beautifully Pure, I've decided to start a weekly music feature, focusing primarily on songs that inspire me (but also including songs that I just plain love).

This week, I chose a song that I've loved for a long time but only just downloaded last week.  It's the music from the Tangled soundtrack (by the brilliant Alan Menken) that plays during the dancing scene.  I fell in love with this song the first time I watched the movie, even before the scene was over.  Dancing (and songs that make me feel like dancing) have always had a special place in my heart, and this song perfectly captures the energy of a dance while retaining a sweet innocence that we in the modern era have forgotten with our dancing.  I personally believe old-fashioned community dances should make a comeback.  What do you think?

A Lonely Library Stack and Intelligibility

I know I'm a little crazy, trying to write a whole blog post in the brief time I have before school.  But I've been thinking about my poor, neglected blog all week, and I figure the only way to get something done is to take what small chance you have to do it. 

So, gentle reader, I give you a basic update on life:

Reading:  I haven't been doing very much of it all.  I think this is due, in part, to the fact that my stack of library books looks rather empty at the moment.  There are plenty of books that I would like to have read and that I think I should read at some point, but I haven't had the inspiration to get very far into any of them.  The one book I picked up in the past week that I thought was going to be interesting -- Split Infinity, by Piers Anthony -- I had to put down after the first dozen pages due to sexual content.  Blegh.  And he had such an interesting concept, too...

Anyway, what I really need right now is a quick, engaging read that I can blaze through in a couple of days.  Probably something YA -- but you know my standards.  I won't go for anything with adult content or swearing.  If you have a book in mind that fits this description, please send it my way. 

Writing:  I have been participating in an informal Poem-A-Day (since this is National Poetry Month), but I started a couple days late and missed the last three days.  Oh well.  I figure that any poetry I write because of PAD is more poetry than I would have written otherwise.  Writing is good. 

Also, I've been a little concerned because it feels that with every time I sit down to write, I make less and less sense.  Of course, it doesn't help that I don't have a specific project I'm working on.  But it's like I've spent so much time away from writing that as soon as my pen touches the paper, all this esoteric goop spills out.  And that's not what I want.  I don't write with long words because I want to sound sophisticated.  I use those words because they best express what I want to say.  There's nothing nearly as wonderful as knowing you used exactly the right word for what you meant.  But still, I'm not sure what to do with myself.  I would like to be at least a little intelligible.

Final Note: My life doesn't consist solely of reading and writing, I hope you know.  But I have run out of time to talk about anything else. 

Spring and Mockingjay

Today is the most beautiful, most spring-like day we've had so far this year, even now at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.  Saturdays are our family house-cleaning days, and today as we traversed the house with vacuums and scrub-brushes, we were able to leave the windows and doors open, letting in a fresh breeze and the sunshine that's lost its winter pallor.  As I sit on my bed to write this blog entry, that light illuminates my room, and my window is still open.  Things smell alive again, even if they don't quite look like it yet.  

I finished reading Mockingjay yesterday.  While I've enjoyed the whole Hunger Games trilogy quite a bit, I cannot come to terms with the ending.  For those of you who haven't read it yet, the end is solidly bittersweet--with a whole lot of bitter and precious little sweet.  Now, I am not someone who has to have a happy ending no matter what.  In fact, some of my favorite stories have tragic endings.  (I never could resist anything that made me cry.)  But there has to be a reason for the ending.  If a story ends bittersweet, it should be because a happy ending would have felt wrong.  Sydney Carton had to die at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, because if he had just swooped in, saved the day, and taken everyone back to England safe and sound, the book would have lost a lot of its meaning and power.  

Alright, so let's start with the concept of meaning and apply it to Mockingjay.  The ending would be understandable (and forgivable) if Collins had something specific to say.  And I think she does have something to say, but what it turns out to be is something as broad and bland and over-parroted as War is bad.  

Yes, war is bad.  But in my entire life span (which, admittedly, isn't very long), I haven't run into a single living person who thought war was good.  So really, did Collins have to sacrifice the ending of this trilogy for the sake of telling us something that we already believe?  

Now, while this is one major problem I have with the ending, I think the real reason I didn't like it was not the ending itself, but the promises I felt the author had made to us that weren't fulfilled.  Looking back on the series, I feel like there were a number of opportunities that were wasted, and a number of aspects of the ending that made it distinctively unhappy.  For example:

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

• Peeta's speaking abilities are mentioned and come into play a number of times in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Because it kept coming up, I felt, when I was speculating about Mockingjay before I read it, that something meaningful Peeta says in public should have a pivotal role in the book, particularly at the end.  Instead, Peeta is a prisoner of the Capitol for the first half of the book, has a severely altered personality in the second half of the book, and the only major part he plays in the end is to keep Katniss from committing suicide after she makes the final decisive action of the book.  Yes, that action belongs to Katniss, since she is the main character.  But the story is also Peeta's in so many ways, and to have his only role in the book be as a source of angst for Katniss is just disappointing.  I wanted to see him act.  I wanted to see him come into his own as a well-reasoned, decisive man.  I wanted him to have a moment where I could stand up and cheer for him.  But the book had none of that.  
• The romance went kaput.  Despite how well it was written, I'm not sure I liked the love triangle.  Being yanked back and forth between Gale and Peeta created a lot of tension, but after a while I just wanted it to stop.  Also, the way in which it got resolved wasn't really a resolution.  Katniss admitted that a part of her would always hate Gale for her sister's death, and Gale, for the most part, walked out of her life.  And after that, Peeta and Katniss fall back in love again in a very boring way off-screen.  After three books of constant romantic tension... that's it?  
• In the end, Katniss has Peeta again.  Great.  But everyone else is gone.  Even the people who aren't dead are gone, such as Katniss's mother.  Throughout the book the one source of comfort for Katniss has been other people, but at the end of the book she's all but completely alone.  The book ends with a profound sense of loneliness, which I found very depressing.  No reward at all for suffering through all the gruesome deaths that litter the pages of the book.  

Those are just the main problems I can think of off the top of my head.  In all, it felt to me like Collins performed a series of tricks, dazzling us with her ability to keep us constantly in suspense, jumping higher and higher each time.  And then, after all those surprises, she found that she'd left herself only a few options with which to craft a good ending.  So she made the ending bittersweet, because that was all that was left.  

Now, the one thing I haven't addressed is that the ending is realistic.  In real wars, people you love die horrendous, pointless deaths.  Happy endings are in short supply.  But most people don't read fiction for realism.  We have real life for that.  Good fiction tries to make us better than we are, not by reinforcing the hopelessness many of us already feel when looking at the world, but by telling us that evil doesn't always win, and that there's a reason to keep hoping and keep fighting for what's right and true.  If a book's central message is "Life stinks," I don't know if it can really be classified as a good book.  

But, despite all the negative things I've said, I do think Suzanne Collins is a talented author with great storytelling abilities, and I would still recommend The Hunger Games and Catching Fire -- and, yes, maybe even Mockingjay, though not without fair warning -- to someone looking for an engaging book to read.  I won't deny that reading these books has been fun.  And I'm still looking forward to the movie.  

It is a good and pleasant thing when friends dwell together in craziness.

There is a reason no one has yet hired me to write proverbs, as you can see from the title of this post.

Anyway, I say such a thing because, while the rest of the city prepares for a blizzard like none we have ever seen (if the hysteria in the weather reports is to be believed), my family and I are going with friends to get ice cream.

Because, after all, absurdity is best shared... especially when it's tasty.

I shall dispense with giving-forth of timeless wisdom in order to say:

HI I'M BLOGGING AGAIN LOOKIE LOOKIE LOOKIE--

*shoves overly-enthusiastic blogger-self back into the closet*

*looks around to make sure no one noticed, then whispers discreetly to self*

That was unprofessional and in very poor taste.

*turns back to blog readers*

Ahem.

Well, as they say, skeletons are best left in the closet...

Overly-Enthusiastic Blogger-Self: I'M NOT A SKELETON!

...so we shall conclude this post.

Overly-Enthusiastic Blogger-Self:  BUT I WANTED TO KNOW IF ANYONE MISSED ME BECAUSE I'VE BEEN GONE FOR SO LONG AND I MISSED ALL OF THEM AND...

*sighs*

*pulls out duct tape*

If you will excuse me.  Babblers are best dealt with soon and with strong and sticky substances, after all.

*disappears into the closet*

Overly-Enthusiastic Blogger-Self:  STRONG AND STICKY WHAT ON EARTH DOES THAT MEAN OH MY GOSH GET AWAY FROM ME THAT IS SO NOT mmph.  Mmmph mmm mph!  Mmmm-mmnm!

Reading

(This is a post I posted a couple days ago on another blog, but I decided to move it here.)

I spent the greater part of today working with books: making a list of all the books I've read in 2011, cataloging my own personal library of books, and the like.  I started out this year with the goal of reading 25 books in 2011, and... well, I read 53.  I am quite pleased.  

Looking over the list of books I finished this year, there were a couple of themes that stood out.  I read 32 fiction books and 20 nonfiction books.  I read more YA fiction this year than in all previous years combined -- mostly thanks to Scott Westerfeld, since I discovered his Leviathan trilogy early this year, which lead me to read his Uglies series while waiting for Goliath to come out.  I also read a number of dystopias, from Brave New World to The Hunger Games.  G. K. Chesterton was probably my favorite author that I read this year.  I discovered him in 2010 when I read his biography of Charles Dickens.  This year I continued my journey through Chesterton with Orthodoxy, The Flying Inn, The Man Who Was Thursday, Heretics, and Saint Thomas Aquinas.  Chesterton is the kind of person that makes me wish I could steal his brain and make it my own.  His writing style is gorgeous, and the thoughts he has are so profound.

While it's tempting to see if I can read even more books in 2012, I think I'm going to take a different approach.  Instead of aiming for a number, I'd rather have the luxury of taking my time reading a book, choosing longer books to read, or rereading books.  In my eternal quest to improve as a writer, I want to examine the works of my favorite authors in detail to see what I can learn from them.

And as a rather odd resolution, I've decided I'd like to dive into the Christian fantasy genre.  It came to my attention as I scanned the fiction shelves at Family Christian Bookstore the other day that, even though I think of Christian fantasy as the genre I'd like to write it, I haven't actually read that much of it.  So I plan to begin my journey with Donita K. Paul's DragonSpell and see where it takes me from there.

Guess who posted! (Guess who also didn't proofread her post. Being in a hurry is not conducive to some things.)

Wow, it's been forever since my last blog post!  The little egg timer in my head went off again (rather belated little instrument, that is), so here I am.  Since I currently feel like there's not much in my head right now, that means this is going to be a random post.  Oh well.  Here, I'll turn it into a numbered list to make it look more official:

1. School (my last year of homeschool high school!) has been going for about a month now, and so far it is turning out to be my favorite year of homeschool ever.  Instead of doing regular math and science, I'm doing accounting and economics.  Economics is my new love.  I'm reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics, which explains a fascinating subject with Sowell's crystal clarity.  The book may look imposing at 654 pages, but it reads like an intriguing news article, and I don't feel I've worked that hard to get halfway through the book.  Do I even need to mention that I recommend it highly? 

2. Today is a busy day, but one of the pleasant side effects of having a busy day is that I get to go to the library (=D) where I have several books waiting for me:

• No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty.  (This is a reread for me.  I just want a refresher, since I really want to do NaNoWriMo but have just about given up hope on the subject, since I have almost no ideas, and the ones I do have don't play nice with each other.)
• Incarceron by Catharine Fisher.  I need a nice fluffy YA read.  (No, I don't suppose Incarceron is fluffy, but for me, YA of any kind IS fluff, even if it's an action-packed science fiction YA.  True fluff mostly sticks in my throat and makes me gag.)  
• The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan.  I've heard a lot about this series, so I thought I'd dip my toe into the first book.  It's also research of a sort, since the lone idea I've even partially entertained for NaNoWriMo has some similarities with what I've heard about this series, so I thought I'd see how this author handled it.  

3. Look at me, I used a numbered list AND bullet points in the same post!

4. And unless I want to discover this blog post sometime next week and realize to my shame that I never posted it, I should post it now, since school is starting.