TECH: On the ocean? Nanonotes #17

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 17 November 2010

Once upon a time, there was a character. Who had, oddly enough, a personality! And in that personality, there was some desire for new experience, for change. Some urges towards planning. Some feelings about reaching out to other people. A dash of agreeableness. And, like everyone else, there might have been a strain of neuroticism, a tendency to take things a bit too far or hard, in some areas. Put together, the character had an ocean of personality -- some openness, some conscientiousness, some extraversion, some agreeableness, and some neuroticism. High-5 for the big five!

http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/145287.html

Now the tricky part, during nanowrimo, was that this character went through some changes as the words rolled through the nanowrimo wordmill. Yes, the experiences, dilemmas, problems, and other stuff that happened along the way also caused some changes in the OCEAN. You might say there were waves on the ocean. And that character arc, as the character shifted from desiring changes to looking for more stability, or perhaps went from trying to plan everything to tackling some things as opportunities for improvisation, or decided that talking to strangers really was a good idea, or quite telling everyone yes and stood up for her own ways, or even changed from a little neurotic about spiders to being ready to squash them on sight? whatever the changes are, they're really exciting! So work the OCEAN into your story, and the waves as your character changes.

Go on, put some psychology into your story plan. And?

Write!

TECH: Nanonotes #18: And they call the wind?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 18 November 2010

A strange day, with the weather blustery and chilly, and students looking toward the end of this quarter (end of the month marks the end of a chunk of classes on our campus, which makes students both smile and cry as they realize they have to finish that paper or take that test or otherwise show that they really, truly were paying attention to the last seven weeks or so of classes). Note: I'm not talking about MIT, which is just where our mailing list has a home. I teach in Japan, at a graduate school here. And the students were just weird today. What do I mean?

Well, take one of them, for example. He stopped me after class and said he really wants to take the English test -- the one for Japanese students to show they really, truly understand English. He has a book, and so forth. And he asked me if I had any special recommendations, something that would really help him understand English quickly. I looked at him, and realized that he honestly expected that I had some magic, some secret knowledge that would make English easy to understand. So I shook my head, and said no, not really. I told him to study the practice questions. And I said it's really just a lot of hard work. He kind of smiled and said that's what he thought, but?

I got to wondering, afterward, what would happen if I told one of these young hopefuls that all they had to do was? or what if I did have some kind of magic pill to hand out? Would it really be useful to go "poof" and whap some level of knowledge into you? I mean, you'd still need to practice using it, and figure out when to use it, what was left out, and all that. Heck, the more I think about it, even if I had a magic pill that would fill you with some set of knowledge, I'm not sure it would be worth it, because then we'd have to spend at least as much time going over what you would suddenly know, running through how and when to use it, practicing using it, and all that? Matter of fact, it might look a lot like the kind of classes that I give now? And you know, in a sense, I already have a magic pill -- it's called writing. I've got books, web pages, and masses of it around. And through the magic of the internet, abracadabra, alakazam, zip, zap, and?

Whap! Now you've got a chunk of it. Just read it. And think about it. And see how it ties to what you already know, and how you might use it. Heck, tell some friends about it, see if you can explain it to them. That magic pill sure makes learning a whole lot easier, doesn't it?

Sorry, sorry, I got off-track. Let's see. Nanonwrimowers! Yes. Start your engines, and?

Oh, my. Quotes from Bradbury? Yes, over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/145478.html I borrowed from Bradbury, and reminded us all that writing is a celebration of being alive and a refusal to let reality drown the joy. Sure, the greyness threatens us, the slings and arrows of normal life drag us down, but? set pen to paper, click keyboards, let the words roll out in their majesty, in their delight, in their serried ranks marching down the white pages to lead us out of this life into other lives? WOW! That's fun! It's work, it's blood, it's sweat, it's tears, and all that? but it's also wonder. So grab a handful of that and let's write!

Now if I had a magic pill of knowledge, would you want it? Hum, there's a story in there somewhere. After all, a little RNA or something, and bang, knowledge in a pill, right? So who will buy this memory?

Scribble!