"Deliberate Schizophrenic State" - Editing with the 10% Solution

Image via Green Heat

In the last meeting of Cat Rambo's Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Class, we discussed editing and submitting stories. One of the books Cat encouraged us to look at was The 10% Solution, by Ken Rand. My classmate Chris ended up finding it online for less than two bucks, so a couple of us gave it a shot.

The 10% Solution teaches writers how to cut their manuscripts by searching out words indicating weak sentence structure and rewriting for stronger, clearer sentences.

In my favorite segment, the author points out that writers force ourselves to be schizophrenic in order to serve the dual functions of writing and editing:

Writers divide their brains into the art department, which creates the stuff, and the marketing department, which peddles it. The art department is subdivided into creative (right brain) and editorial (left brain). Writers are schizophrenic.


Successful writers separate their brain functions deliberately and at will. They write with passion, from the head and the heart. They write fast. They dispassionately edit what they've written as if somebody else wrote it.

Later in the book, he calls this a "deliberate schizophrenic state", and that analogy pinpoints one reason the editing process is so difficult. Most aspiring writers understand that we have to "get distance" from a piece to edit it effectively, but I hadn't considered that I might also be getting distance from myself. When we write, we reach for emotions--maybe something we've experienced, or maybe with intuitive empathy--and finishing a scene, a chapter, a story, gives us both a sense of satisfaction and a sense of catharsis for those emotions we've dredged up.

If we can't get enough distance from the "self" that wrote it, editing might feel like denying that experience. That's why the "deliberate schizophrenic state" makes so much sense to me. In order to edit objectively, we have to cut ourselves off from the self that has emotional connection to that piece. That can be really difficult, and it requires practice, and time. Just like time is the greatest healer, it's also the best thing to create distance for a piece.


But what if you don't have time?

If you're like me, when you finish a piece, you Must Do Something Right Now to start polishing it. One thing I like about The 10% Solution is that I can edit a piece right away. It gives me the ability to look at sentences out of context, which severs the connection to story. (I've also heard of people reading backwards, sentence by sentence, to the same effect. I've never been able to do that.)

By searching for "ly", we can judge whether that particular adverb is necessary within that sentence, and then jump to the next without ever having to read more than a sentence. It's a great exercise in objectivity to edit this way, because we don't get caught up in the emotion, in the current of the story. It's just words. I was able to cut about 1,000 words of an 8,600 word short story using this method.

The method's strength is limited to the technical level, but I think the idea of a deliberate schizophrenic state goes beyond simply editing your words. Where being "schizophrenic" helps the most is in getting feedback from other people. It's easy to slip into "writer" mode and cling to the piece when getting a critique, but the distance of the "editor" mode will dampen the emotional connection, sort of like laughing with people rather than being laughed at.

While I certainly do not suggest cultivating schizophrenia, I think we as writers do need to learn to wear many different hats. I recommend the ones below for both fashion and usefulness.

The Writer Hat

The Editor Hat

The Marketer Hat

The "I'M PUBLISHED" Party Hat (by Santiago)

Have you used The 10% Solution? How far along are you with your writerly schizophrenia? What helps you get distance from a piece?

New Short Story?

Working on a new short story.

I'm as shocked as anyone. The first words came to me in the car, and I started writing it down at lunch. I got about 500 words, and to prove that I'm not lying (because I know you don't believe me), here is the first page of my totally unedited short story, about monsters, music, and Shinto exorcisms.

***********

I imagine Kamiki Ryunosuke would play Hiroki well.

I always said Hiroki Satou figured out whatever he laid his hands on, whether that was stringed instruments, the electronic locks on our high school's AV Room, or exorcism manuals; the day Aaron Nguyen appeared on the soccer field with his head smashed in, Hiroki used all three.

"Ghosts are bad enough," he said, talking around the cigarette he'd bought off the science teacher, careless of the ash falling on the lapel of his school blazer. "Asian ghosts are fucking terrifying."

And with murder as the sure reason for Aaron's death, a ghost was basically guaranteed.

I rolled my eyes. There were a few things he still didn't get about American English--prepositions, articles, idioms like "you can't have your cake and eat it too", which, if I thought too hard about it, didn't make any goddamn sense to me either--but I took personal pride in the fact that, by the end of sophomore year, he'd perfected the vast and varied usage of the word "fuck". Sure, he'd done all the memorizing and mistake-making, but I wiped a lot of spit off our desks just teaching him how to pronounce the "f", so I'm entitled to some credit.

Hiroki flipped the page in a book filled with low-res crime-scene photographs, all claiming to have been some paranormal connection. I waved away smoke, glancing across the brick courtyard separating us from the soccer field, which was now cordoned off with flimsy, taxi-yellow caution tape. The priest and half the nuns all clustered around it, clutching their rosaries and shaking their heads.

"Kay," I said. "So what's Aaron Nguyen's vengeful spirit going to do--strangle students with Mac cables? Program a continuous loop of Justin Beiber into the PA system?"

Hiroki smirked, glancing up at me through his lashes, eyes glittering in that deeply mischievous way that had first attracted me to him. I tried not to notice the 9am sunlight stealing through the filigree of leaves next to the chapel, catching the tawny skin and lighting his eyes to eerie amber. I'd given up on him years ago, right around the time I hit 5'10" and he stubbornly refused to get any taller than 5'7", but he was too goddamn pretty for his own good sometimes.

Like half the girls in our class, I'd been in love with Hiroki since sixth grade, when he'd transferred from his school in Arashiyama, Japan, to Millroad Academy--the only middle school in North Carolina with its own Starbucks. Probably the only middle school in the entire South with one. The fact that "the South" didn't include Florida was a matter of intense confusion for Hiroki, and was one of those cultural details he held as evidence that American education was inferior to Japanese, along with the fact that, at 12, we hadn't even started algebra, and we didn't know what the fuck a lesser panda was.

The day Hiroki transferred, he'd spoken enough English to answer a stat-sheet of questions almost correctly: favorite color--blue; favorite sport--soccer; favorite animal--the lesser panda. Even the teacher had to Google it, and it was so cute and new that the class had fallen in love and insisted it become the class mascot.

To me, Hiroki was cute and new. I'd stared at those dark, mischievous eyes, those long eyelashes and high cheekbones, that slim neck disappearing into our school's regulation green polo, and immediately decided to hurl myself in front of an SUV if he didn't like me. He must have been hot-shit in Japan, too, because he was an arrogant little fuckhead, even if he couldn't say "Carolina".

I'd heard Japanese people were supposed to be polite and shy, but Hiroki put his feet inside his desk and leaned back in his chair with a Nintendo DS, the Japanese version of a new Pokemon game, and a bad-boy grin that said "I am a Pokemon Master--please, let me rape you in the ass". His prowess with Pokemon earned him instant, reverent popularity. He also had a penchant for cussing in Japanese when he lost.

"K'SAGH!" is what it sounded like to me, and it means 'shit'. By the end of the year, everyone in class was saying it.

Fuck the lesser panda. Hiroki was our mascot.

Luck 7 Writing Challenge

Adam Gaylord and Darci Cole BOTH tagged me in the Luck 7 Writing Challenge, which originated at the Fiction and Film writing blog, by Kate Larkindale.

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS.
2. Go to line 7.
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating.
4. Tag 7 authors.
5. Let them know.

Here are seven paragraphs from "The Mark of Flight", which takes place at a back-country inn Arianna finds herself at after being kidnapped by her foreign tutor, Markmaster Tashda.

"I require a bath," she snapped, but the tremor in her voice belied the haughty tone.

"I require a word," he said, "and then I’ll call for a basin."

Arianna breathed in raggedly and kept her mouth shut. A basin indeed. Her body screamed for a full tub of hot water to soak away the soreness, but she had already dared too much today to push him further. She would hear what he had to say, and then make her need clearer. "Very well."

Tashda gestured for her to sit on the edge of the bed. She watched him a moment, distrust thick in her mouth, but despite wanting to keep as much distance between herself, Tashda, and the bed as possible, she crossed stiffly to the uneven mattress. It gave an unexpected crunch under her, but she put the question of what the dirty muslin contained out of her mind as Tashda drew nearer. Promise or not, if he so much as touched her, she would scream.

"Before the evening is through," he said, "twenty seven of my men will return to this very inn."

It was so far from what she had expected him to say. Twenty seven men. Arianna became suddenly, violently dizzy. What did that mean--soldiers, retainers? Was he Centoreinian Nobility? Arianna's fingers clenched in the mattress, her heart pounding in her throat as the prospect of his forcing her into bed became exponentially more plausible. But it didn't make total sense, for even if he did drag her back to Centoren and marry her, Rizellen would never acknowledge the ceremony. And the likelihood of Arianna producing a child when her own mother had struggled through so many miscarriages was low enough to preclude his gaining power that way.  But if he meant soldiers...

Arianna swallowed, trying to calm her pounding heart. Tashda, with his charisma and fine words, could easily lead hundreds of men. And would have, she realized, if he'd intended to kidnap the Princess of Rizellen. She forced the pace of her breathing to slow and looked into his eyes with all the distaste she felt.

"Am I to be impressed?"

*****

I'm pleased with how the seven paragraphs contained a single beat. I wonder if I couldn't make all of this tighter. Then again, I always wonder that.


I'm tagging:
1. Michelle Ristuccia
2. Adryn Henard
3. Bryan Lincoln
4. Tee Morris
5. Justin Macumber
6. Rebecca Niles
7. Cat Rambo

Interactive Landscape

Speaking of interacting with the landscape, check out this kick-ass table from Jailmake studio! I want one with catnip.

In Cat Rambo's Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story class, our homework was to write a scene of no more than 500 words during which our characters were to do one of the following things:

• Wake up
• Go to sleep
• Prepare a meal
• Eat a meal
• Spend a large sum of money
• Work at his/her profession

That may not have been the choices exactly, but it's the general idea. I wrote my scene (below), and when we came back to class the following week, Cat explained that the reason behind doing one of these scenes was to have the character engage with the world they live in.

Worldbuilding is a key element to all writing, but most pointedly to genre fiction, where the landscapes are often very different from our own, or similar to our own, but with key alien elements. The difficulty is not in creating that world, but in showcasing it through writing. With this exercise, Cat gave us a method for showcasing the worldbuilding: creating scenes or scenarios in which the characters interact with the world around them.

I realize I've done this before. In THE MARK OF FLIGHT, what started out as a scene during which Arianna, her mother, and a gaggle of noblewomen were weaving favors for a festival the following day, all the while having a discussion about Arianna's future marriage prospects, turned into a scene in which the women were participating in a sport that incorporated not only an allusion to the world's magic system, but showcased the fashion, character, and values of the upper class society. The conversation they had didn't change at all, just the trappings and level of excitement.

Instinctively, I knew it was a better scene, but I didn't know why. Thanks to Cat's class, I have that explanation. By giving the characters something to do what was unique to their world, I could make the scene serve several purposes: getting out important information through the conversation, and showcasing the world and society through the interaction with the physical landscape, and HOW it's done.

Following is the scene I wrote for Cat Rambo's class, involving two dragon-riders named Howell and Giddeon.

*******************************************

Howell was dirty, bruised and buzzing when he dragged himself to his quarters and shut the door on the last twenty hours. Most nights, the liquid beams of the desert moon spilled through the window, but not tonight. He'd dammed them up behind the casement's steel bombardment shield, which he’d cranked shut that morning just in case there was any truth to the raid reports.

Which, of course, there had been.

Now, the squat room was dark but for the tarnished illumination of a dragons-eye globe sunk into the wall. Mottled splotches of oxidization on the orb’s surface forced the amber light into a filigree pattern on the claw-marked floor, shifting like the protean shadows of leaves in an oncoming storm. They didn’t use that light much, but Giddeon must have left it on for him, for what good it would do. Which was, in fact, very little.

Curtains of shadow hung on the contours of their heavy wooden bed-boxes, and Howell squinted at the much-abused floor, picking his way around disassembled blasters, half-repaired combat leathers, and the other hazards his Shanlori had left.

Giddeon's figure made an irregular range of angles against the far wall of his bed-box, one pale, wiry arm slung over the side and boneless with sleep. A twang of loneliness fell flat in the cacophony of Howell’s abused body parts; in Giddeon’s situation, he probably couldn’t have waited up either. But it was still annoying to face the evening by himself.

He shucked tortured gloves and mucky boots, stripped out of sweat-lined canvas and leather. The musk of the stables still clung to his clothes, and the half-flask of scale-oil spattered across his boots did not improve the consistency of caked-on dust and dragon-dung, but he couldn't spare the energy to take care of it now. He rinsed his body in the basin by the door, pulled the tie from his storm of black curls, and pulled on the shirt and shanks least in need of a wash.

His own bed-box was packed with the artifacts of that morning’s chaos. Howell swallowed against the knot in his throat, chest clenching in an unreasonable reaction of despair. He was too tired to clear it off. He was too tired for almost anything.

Howell climbed over the side of Giddeon's box and fought his way under the quilts. The Shanlori grunted a greeting, or maybe a protest--it was hard to tell--and Howell stretched out on the sunken cushion at his back. Lights flashed beneath his eyelids. His muscles vibrated and twitched, as though his body refused to acknowledge the fight was over, refused to drop its guard. Giddeon's ribcage swelled and shrank against his back, reminding Howell that he had only lost a battle, and not everything. He had not lost his dragon. He had not lost his Shanlori. And that was almost good enough.

The dragon-eye light flickered once, and went out, finally giving up its own protracted fight.

Fit 2 Write

High School me in all my oblivious athleticism. Seriously, look at my arms!

I haven't been blogging as often as usual lately, and part of that is because I've been devoting more of my personal time to fitness.

About a month ago, I reached the top of the flight of stairs I have to climb at work, heart pounding, breath sharp, and realized that they cardiovascular health had gone the way if the zombie (dead, and poorly revived into a rapidly-decomposing example of resurrection-gone-wrong). Like many people I know, I was athletic in high school - I did dance for a number of years and was also a member of my high school's crew team. (Take a look at the picture on the right. Hard to believe I was dissatisfied then.)

As I collapsed into my rolley-chair, hand over my heaving bosom, I made a decision: I needed to take control of my health again.

Confession: I've always sucked at diets.

I grew up with a combination of home-cooked meals and processed foods, and never really bothered to think about what I was putting into my body. Even when I got old enough to feel the pressure to diet, I never really managed it. I suck at denying myself things I want, especially when they're readily available, and when your brother is as picky as mine, there's usually at least one unhealthy option. I can't blame it all on my brother, though. I was doing dance or crew during high school, so even though I wasn't totally satisfied with my body, it didn't stop me from eating pizza on Fridays or guzzling peach soda at Adryn's house after school.

When my family started doing the Sugar Buster's diet, my world sort of...broke. The plates of understanding and forced ignorance sort of shifted into place. I'd known I wasn't eating right, but I had very little concept of just how much sugar was in all the things I consumed daily. I wasn't 100% on this diet like my mom was, but I actually stuck to it pretty well my freshman year of college, when I rode my bicycle around campus and kept my weight down to a toned 115. I fell off the wagon around sophomore year, but I learned two important things on that diet:

1. There is sugar in almost everything processed, and you have to learn to look for it.
2. If it's there, and I want it, I can't resist.

I've hopped on and off the diet bandwagon since then, and generally it's that "knowing I'm on a diet makes me want bad things more" mentality that has me slinking off into the wagon ruts.

As a person with a desk-job and a desk-hobby, I know my diet is going to be important in keeping and maintaining my weight. Even in the past two weeks I've been on my current diet (eating organic, whole foods and steering clear of wheat-based and processed foods as much as possible) I've noticed a difference in my energy level.

Seriously, something like this would have to happen to get me moving going faster than a light jog. (No idea who this photo is by; please let me know if it's yours!)

Confession: I hate running.

I've had problems with my hip and lower back since about high school, and the pain has made it difficult to do impact exercises such as running. Being a rather busty specimen is another hindrance in that regard, since finding a sports bra that actually holds Barnes & Noble* in place is pretty challenging.

I'm just going to put this out there: I'm lazy. I can always find something I want to do rather than work out, and it's usually pretty easy to find an excuse not to go to the gym...

...so I took away my excuses. I hired a personal trainer. Yes, it's expensive, but if it wasn't expensive, I would have a much harder time forcing myself to get my ass down to the gym. By the time I've gone through my 24 lessons, I'm sure I'll have seen results enough that I want to continue coming to the gym on my own. I'll have made it a habit.

So far, I've dropped about five pounds, and shed 1/2"-1" in all four of the measurement areas (bust, waist, hip, thigh), and have noticed a difference in my cardiovascular health. Raven and Skrybbi independently commented that my face looks thinner and my arms look more toned.

photo by maniwa_pa

Confession: I've got to have someone to hold me accountable.


I have fitness goals that I'm working to, which is helpful, but the terror of not looking like Angelina Jolie in my Dragon*Con costume is a little too remote to light a fire under my ass right now.

Just like making goals and deadlines has helped me with my writing, I figured it would help me with my weight-loss goals as well. So what did I do?

I made a new podcast, of course!

Introducing: Fit 2 Write Podcast: Three writers weighing in, because calories count as much as words.

Learning to Write Short - Post # 1

Not sure if want (write short).

Since today's post involves a discussion of length, let's just get this out of the way: that's what she said.

Good.

When it comes to writing, I think we all have a natural length we're comfortable with, a sort of natural pace, scope, and idea-size. The ideas that appeal to us, and the extent to which we develop them are both indications of what format and length our writing will take. In other words, some writers are natural short-storyists (SS) and some are natural novelists (NN).

The hostesses of Pendragon Variety, for example, would break down thusly:





SHORT STORYISTS
Mica
Skrybbi
Rosemary

NATURAL NOVELISTS
Scribe
Adryn
Raven

Have you ever been in a group and written from a prompt, only to be shocked at how vastly different each person's idea was? It's funny how these things start, how people's minds work in such different ways. Skrybbi and I, for example, came up with a story idea while watching a documentary. The next day, we were shocked to find out what the other had come up with.

She fashioned the perfect scene to capture just the edge of the concept and leave the audience wondering, I started brainstorming the who, the why, the how, and the what-does-it-mean-for-society. I'm less interested in the inherent "whoa-factor" of the concept than I am in how it affects people, whereas Skrybbi likes to set things out with no explanation, and let the reader imagine their own effects. She doesn't want more than that. The untapped potential of that drives me nuts.

I want to write a story based on this picture.

I have trouble coming up with ideas small enough to really be considered a short story. I managed it a few times by accident, but more often than not my ideas spiral out of control in terms of scope and scale and I end up with a conflict that can't be resolved in under 20,000 words, or a world I can't do justice to. I would say this is because I prefer longer works, and so that is what I'm compelled to create, which leads to a lack of experience with short-story-sized conflict.

I've had this problem of writing short stories for a while now. I used to write short stories, before I started working on a book in earnest [read: ten-ish years ago]. Now, I find it difficult to plan short stories. Sometimes they happen without planning, but I'd like to be able to know for sure that I can come up with an idea, plot it, and execute it. I don't want to just leave it up to chance.

So I signed up for Cat Rambo's Fantasy and Science Fiction Short Story workshop, which Cat generously bartered for, since I'm not in a position to afford the price right now. I'm really hoping this will help me shore up the areas where I'm deficient (plotting small) and recognize the areas I have strength in, and give me a good boost up the ladder. I'm already having a great time writing the practice vignettes for class.

I've submitted "Steam Kids" for workshopping this Saturday. We'll see if it's got as many problems as I think. Hopefully, with other people to point out where it's broken, I can fix it and have something strong that can stand on its own.

The Bookkeeper (Flash Fiction)

(artist unknown) The Poet

The night my grandfather disappeared, the R.B. burned Coraline Library to the ground, and since then, I haven't spoken a word of my own. When I started talking at the age of two, my mother cried in relief because she thought I didn't have the gift.

But she'd been wrong.

I only know this because she wrote it down. Places, faces, images, sounds: they don't stay with me long. There's no room for them there, in among the words. Creak, dunk, thrush, fit. Affable, shrapnel, firebrand, tor. Tickertape snatches of things once thought and recorded, inked on paper, branded, bound, and handed down; they have stamped themselves on the inside of my skull, the permanent impressions of steel typewriter bars going click, click, click.

"I cannot live without books." Thomas Jefferson.

I wish that were so for me, because I can't speak without them. I have a million lines reeling through my head like newspapers dashing through machinery, flashing ink-stained underskirts in the stamping-dance of the printing press. Ah, that paper maiden. Corporeal, no--but constructed of a billion words. She is knowledge and ideas. A literal, lingual muse.

It would be one thing to die without reading a chapter of some non-reality--to be unable to measure your own life's sorrow against the imaginings of what could or might be. Torture, to be certain, for humans are creatures that thrive by measuring and comparing, sharing and communicating--if we can't do this, then we do not know how to live. If we can't find the edges of what we know to be normal, we can't expand and dream beyond. Without information, we do not know how to be human.

Without words, we are powerless.

Which is why my gift is also a curse.

*****

This was originally intended as an opening for a longer piece, which I've decided--for the moment--not to write. I liked the beginning, and I thought it stood on its own as a concept, if not a story.

George Lucas - The Phantom Audience

I've been a Star Wars fan since I was a little girl. In middle school, one of my walls was a collage of posters, pictures, and fan-art, I had a one-foot model of the Millenium Falcon suspended from my ceiling, and enough extended universe books to build a desk.

Recently, George Lucas announced that he was stepping back from making feature films because of the negative reaction he continues to receive from fans about alterations he's made to the Star Wars films. The Guardian cited a NY Times interview with Lucas, in which he said the following:

"On the internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I'm saying: 'Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.'" 

"Why would I make any more," Lucas says, "when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?"

[Insert appropriate joke about going to the Toshi station to pick up power converters here]

After my initial eye-roll, I had two reactions:

1. Lucas, as the creator, has the power to do whatever he wants with his franchise, but should have been prepared for a negative backlash.

2. Lucas's reaction to audience backlash suggests that he views his audience as witnesses rather than collaborators.

As a creator, I find Lucas's reaction both understandable and problematic. I understand the desire to go back, to tweak things and try to make them more like what you see in your head, but once a work has made an impact on society, the time to make changes has passed.

I'm a firm subscriber to the belief that art belongs to the audience, not the creator. It's is going to be true no matter how much the author wants to control, revise, or retract the original work, because experiencing art is personal, and what we come to understand through that experience weaves itself into our ideas of who we are and where we fit into the world. Both parties come out of it changed, having created the experience inside their heads as something meaningful and indicative of self, even if it's as simple as "Anakin is way more annoying than Luke -- I didn't think that was possible".

While a work of art reflects the audience more than the artist, it is also important not to take the artist entirely out of the equation. Art is the product of the ideas and values of the artist, and an audience resonates with the evidence of those ideas and values, even if their interpretations are completely different. Intention has nothing to do with it. They may want to know what the artist "meant", but only because they have already decided what the work means to them, and want to find out how they compare, and where that places them in the scheme of society/morality/the bright center of the universe.

Whether the intention and interpretation turn out to be the same is irrelevant. For example, no matter how many times Tolkein stated that The Lord of the Rings was not meant as a Christian allegory, the audience member who interprets it that way isn't wrong. He sees the parallels in his own minds, and those parallels become part of the meaning of The Lord of the Rings for him, part of his experience. It has somehow strengthened or created pathways of thinking about the world in relation to something that matters to him.

Respect of an audience's reaction is valuable to an artist as well, because it allows her to grow and reevaluate herself. By deciding whether the interpretation of the audience is or isn't what she intended, an artist can create her own meaning and understanding of self through the reaction.

Unfortunately, Lucas didn't get the chance to visit the Vader-cave on Dagobah for a little self-reflection. In a 2004 interview, he said: 

[T]o me, [the original version of the trilogy] doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. 

Whoa. Stop the Bantha.

Deriding fans for falling in love with something you created, even if you see it as incomplete, is rude enough to inspire Force-lightning. If there's anything Lucas should try to take back, it's that. Let's pretend the fans shot first.

To claim that the original version of the trilogy no longer exists is to say that this whole collaborative sub-culture built around the works, and the meanings derived from the experience of it, are invalid. To Lucas, the film may have been "half completed", but it was released to the public - with or without his permission - and millions fell in love.

He often claimed to have been disappointed, and yet something kept him going after A New Hope, and I doubt it was the desire to keep producing "half completed" films.

Image from nakedglitter on tumblr

When John Green wrote Looking for Alaska, I'm sure he was proud of it. Later on, however, he stated that he no longer agreed with what he'd set out to write in that book, particularly because some fans pointed out the unfair treatment of a female character. Rather than going back and making changes, however, Green used that change in philosophy to grow as an artist. He wrote another book -- Paper Towns -- in order to reexamine the parts of Looking for Alaska he no longer agreed with.

And that, in my opinion, is how it should be done.

Once a work of art has moved into the public view, it ceases to belong to the artist because each member of the audience develops his or her own unique version -- it becomes a collaboration. The audience gives the work meaning, rates its significance, and uses it to make more art and more communication and facilitate more development of self. Art doesn't just reflect one or the other, artist or audience -- it's a set of facing mirrors that reflect each other indefinitely.

Rather than treating his audience as collaborators, involved in an ongoing process of development, and allowing the original Star Wars trilogy to remain as it originally was, he treated his audience as witnesses to his inability to move on.

Further reading: Flavorwire's Open Thread on George Lucas.

AND TO PROVE that art inspires collaboration and dialoge and change and art, I've written the following song, using the music of YouTuber gunnarolla, as a tribute to George Lucas.

How Do You Balance Your Life?

How do you choose to spend your time?

My life has six categories of time expenditure:

Work
Health
Writing
Entertainment
Social Life
Sleep

I'm awesome enough to balance all six.

You hated me for about a second, didn't you? OK, stop now. I'm pretty sure it's difficult to balance more than three at once. Maybe that's just me, but let's go with it. The three I've been operating under recently are work, health, and social life. I really want to be writing, but when life gives you best friends' birthdays, you buy cake. And a round of shots. Anyway, the major difference hasn't been two nights of reckless abandon and carousing...

I've recently started back at the gym, and pretty soon, I'll be starting up a fitness podcast with a pair of really awesome guys...but there's one thing I've noticed about trying to get back in shape: it takes up a lot of time. On days when I work out, I've got less than an hour of writing time if I decide to entirely ignore my roommate. I'm not a sprint-writer, so this has been a bit tough on me. I like to binge.

Friday, I have plans in the evening, but my plans on saturday are to crawl back into my cocoon and work on my short story for Pendragon.

Which of the three are you prioritizing at the moment? Which three do you want to prioritize?


photo by patriziasoliani

Hot Mess

The oft-spoken platitude "things always get worse before they get better" is especially apt when it comes to housework and writing.

You know that moment where you look around at your house/bedroom/apartment/etc. and decide you need to rearrange so that everything is more accessible, more organized, and more of a reflection of you? Well, my roommate and I did just that last weekend. Our living room was okay - we'd painted a wall and hung pictures and barn stars, but it just seemed weird to walk into our apartment and not see...books. I mean, she's a librarian and I'm, you know, a writer. Books are sort of what we do.

It would have been awesome if we could just Mary Poppins (<--honorary verb) our apartment, but just like in writing, there's no easy button. Before we could move anything, we had to PULL OUT ALL THE THINGS. By Sunday night, we'd rearranged the living room to our liking: books and knick-knacks and pictures and posters signed by Neil Gaiman and John Green...

...and the rest of the house had descended into chaos. We blamed the cats, and ignored it until Friday, by which point the kitchen...

Anyway, you get the idea. Right now, HELLHOUND is at the same point as my apartment. I've gutted it, chopped it up, and spread out the pieces. I've added characters and cut others, done away with subplots and worked in better ones. But as I fix one part of the story, another part falls off into jumbled, irreparable madness. I've hit that moment where I think everything is as messy as it's going to be, and I just need to figure out where everything goes, and what I need to fix it.

So I'm note-carding again, looking at the characters and subplots, filling up the giveaway box and making room for only what's good and necessary, only what accurately represents the story I want to tell.

Unfortunately, there are no cats to blame for this madness. Fortunately, no one else has to see it until it's ready.

As for the apartment, it's Sunday evening, and things have gotten better. I've rearranged my room, Skrybbi has built her desk, and we've done approximately 5 loads of laundry. The kitchen is no longer a war-zone, and even though my cat knocked a bottle of Kahlua onto the floor at 3AM last night, we're feeling good about how everything is shaping up.