[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting Nov. 4, 2010

Whoops, snuck that extra bit in about putting a dragon in your imagination (or something like that) and forgot to reflect on the old nano notes from day 3.

Let's see, what were they now? Actually, what were they then? Here we go, over at http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/140933.html I rambled on about the fun of writing the parts that you can see, that come trippingly to the fingers or mental vision or however you gather your wordy delights. Pick out scenes that you are excited about, that you want to explore, that you want to write NOW -- and write them. Then add in some prequels and sequels and probably the sidequels here and there, and before you know it, pow! You've got a peacock of scenery ready for grooming.

Now, admittedly, in the heat of the nanowrimo drive for words, you probably have some disarray to deal with -- like having the wedding before the proposal, and other minor sequence and plotting issues such as that, but hey, that's what January is for, right? So for now, hit those scenes you can see, the highlights and low dives and other fun places for your characters to congregate and get in trouble. Later on, when you have time, you can delve into the alleyways and other hidden crevices that you need to dig into to get these scenes connected, foreshadowed, reactions properly tucked in, and all that.

Hopscotch, and skip the bogs.

And then there's the old adages from over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/141064.html to give different viewpoints a try. After all, we talk about using first person, third limited or perhaps third cinematic, a drop of omniscient, and such options. We also fiddle around with which viewpoint character to use. But for nanowrimo, go ahead and try them out. Write the scene in third limited. Then write it again in first person. What does it look like from the villain's point-of-view? Write it and see! Or how about from the dorky sidekick who never says very much? Drop us into that first person and see what happens!

Or you could even play around with some radical viewpoints. Second person? You really want to write a scene that way? You can do it! Or perhaps you just want to tell us how that fight scene felt to the sofa that everyone was crashing over? Ouch?

So, explore some of the options that we often skip. Give them a whirl. See the scenes from both sides now, and then maybe from another direction. Focus on the scenes that make you want to write them, the high points of your story. Make those words count up, and let the story flow (well, actually, since you're not worrying about order, I guess it's more like running randomly along, here, there, and over somewhere else, but at least the words will flow, right?).

Where were we before I got distracted? Oh, yes. High points and traveling points of view. I did it, he did it, they all done it, and then someone else saw it.

Write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting Nov. 3, 2010

Sigh. Today has been kind of difficult for me -- it's a holiday here in Japan, and our church held a bazaar, which resulted in my standing behind a tableful of odds and ends for most of the day, laughing at people, telling them how cheap it was, and so on. It's also the height of the fall allergy season, and mine hit hard, so I took a pill. Dried up the old nose, but gave me a crushing headache along the way. And dry mouth and munchies, too.

Anyway, somewhere in the midst of all this, a young boy came by with his mother. Somewhere on my table, there was a set of small glass animals, one for each of the 12 traditional years -- rat, rooster, etc. (check dr. google, I'm sure he remembers the 12 years, or look at the paper placemat the next time you're in a Chinese restaurant, there's a good chance it will explain). Anyway, we were looking at that, and the boy was talking about how fast animals are. The man nearby said something about a leopard being the fastest, and the boy said, "I think a dragon is faster than a leopard."

What a delightful thought! And his eyes gleamed, and I think he was about to tell us why he thought that a dragon was faster than a leopard. I'm sure he had some perfectly wonderful reasons for thinking this?

But for some reason, the man nearby and his mother both jumped on the poor boy, telling him not to be ridiculous, that a dragon was imaginary! And he shrugged, and went on into the crowd.

I was left behind the table, wondering just why an imaginary dragon couldn't be faster than an almost equally legendary leopard? I mean, I have seen leopards in the zoo, but that's not really the same as a leopard in the wild. I've got relatively little real experience of leopards, and if someone turned up tomorrow having discovered dragons in central Australia or some such place, well? Anyway, why can't we compare the speed of an imaginary dragon and the speed of a non-imaginary leopard? After all, just toss the square root of minus one in, and we get imaginary numbers. Why not imaginary animals?

But before I go completely over the illusionary edge chasing the merits of imaginary animals, let's admit that our imagination deserves some support! This business of immediately blocking flights of fantasy and fun with labels like ridiculous and imaginary seems to me unnecessary.

And that seems like an excellent point for Nanowrimowers to keep in mind. Sure, your story just mixed a little fantasy into the drabness, or took a step along the edge of wildness? Let it go! Heck, so what if your race track happens to have a leopard, a dragon, a rocket-propelled dragster, and maybe some other strange participants alongside the run-of-the-mill horses, whippets (are those dogs actually real?), and so forth? Drop the startling flag (yeah, I know most race tracks have starting flags) and see who runs, let them whip around the track so fast that the bend stretches out and back like a cartoon rubber band, and see who crossed the finish line out in front!

Okay? Don't stop the flights of fantasy, the rainbow borders, the gilding of the lily of reality with a dose of imaginary glitter. Enjoy it. Let your mind daydream, and see what gold lurks at the base of the wild and woolly rainbows.

By the way, have you ever stopped to consider which is faster? A dragon, or a leopard? Now why do you think that? Come now, I'm sure you have an opinion, and I promise, I'm not going to let those strange people tell you how ridiculous it is to compare them. Just between you and me, I suspect that the dragon is faster, too. After all?

Just write, okay?
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting 31 Jan 2010

Happened to see this in the passing waves of email, and thought some of you might enjoy it.

"If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better." JK Rowling

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
--- video and transcript

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html -- also has a link to the video
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting 15 July 2008

Random quotes from http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
"The only way to have a friend is to be one." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure." Lawana Blackwell

"Joy is not in things; it is in us." Richard Wagner

"If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." Anatole France

"The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination." Victor Hugo
And the country and western song that was playing was Riding With Private Malone, David Ball. An odd song about a young man buying a car, and finding a note in the glove box from Private Malone.

So, let's see what we have. A hint about how to have a friend -- be one first. Two comments about joy, little victories and in us. A note about what it means when everyone knows it. And the relationship between civilization and imagination. And of course the odd song about a man, a car, and a ghost.

How do these seem to be related to you? What stands out? What does it remind you about in your life? What if you found a note in the glove box from the previous owner, who apparently died some time before? Could you imagine that previous owner as your friend, sharing joy with you?

Enjoy your reflections, and your day.

When we write, we talk to unknown friends with visions.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting: Wed, 19 May 1993 11:10:45 JST

[being a short diversion on a method of inducing ideas and spurring the elusive muse into a more rapid pace... or at least some locomotion.]

(shouldn't that be spelled loco notion? - tink)

Having drunk deep of the valuable wit and wisdom of this group (perhaps "being drunk on" would be more accurate - though I haven't touched a drop of alcohol), please allow me to return the favor with a bit of invaluable advice (invaluable meaning worthless? or beyond price? you judge. hum. 4K - about 80 cents? Alright, I've got 80 cents, do I hear a dollar, who'll give me a dollar...:-)

If you have the chance, take the T.A.T. (Thematic Apperception Test). However, take care. Let me explain.

The T.A.T. is a psychological profiling tool. It is quite simple in administration. The subject (that's you, if you get a chance) sits down and is given paper (blue books, that kind of thing). This may be as part of a group. Then a series of pictures are shown. For each picture, the subject has 15 minutes (30? I'm not sure anymore) to follow the directions. That is where there may be a problem.

The pictures, incidentally, are wonderful. Sometime I intend to track down a set to be framed and installed where I write. For example, one is the back silhouette of a figure with a rope above and below the figure. Is the figure male or female? Adult or child? Clad or unclad? Going up, down, or merely holding onto the rope? Where is the rope? What is happening? The ambiguity of the picture is almost total, allowing the subject to read into it quite a bit, which in turn (theoretically) allows the psychologist to read out quite a bit.

For, you see, the directions are that the subject should write a story about each picture. No further amplification is given of the instructions, and I, at least, presumed they wanted the most marketable, interesting story I could come up with. I suspect this was NOT a particularly good decision, although it kept me awake.

It also resulted in me being the only member of my group that consistently begged for more time with each picture, and that practically got down on the ground entreating the psychologists to give me a copy of my test books. (They refused, although they seemed surprised at the request. Perhaps their testing didn't tell them of my interest in writing?)

Ah, well. There are quite a few pictures in the series, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time dedicated to developing and quickly writing at least a sketch of a story for each one. (I took the test over 15 years ago, and still have fond memories of that short block of time spent dreaming up and writing down stories at a furious pace.)

So, if you have a chance, go take the T.A.T. - or at least bootleg a copy of the pictures and administer it to yourself. (In case you're wondering - at one point in college, I had the opportunity to have a fairly complete psychological profile done for free, and grabbed it. So for one week, in addition to classes and work, I took a battery of tests including the T.A.T. Later I had a reading by one of our modern-day witchdoctors, which was interesting. I've often wondered just whose research project I took part in. Or maybe they use this method to calibrate and double-check the tests against each other?)

If nothing else, pick up a book of photographs or other art, carefully avoid looking at the titles (cut them off if the pictures are from magazines), and then tell yourself a story about that frozen moment. Who are these people? How did they come to this moment, and where are they going next?

Simple enough? Try it! (Does that sound as though I'm prospecting for addicts, hunting another sucker for the gambling game, or otherwise soliciting you to take a chance with your sanity, wealth, or health? I suppose trying to get you writing could be considered in that light... what the heck, <Mae West accent, please!> why don't you come up and try it sometime?)

(yer assignments are due before the end of the world. please use the correct format and be sure to put your names on your papers, as there will be no chance for later revisions and may not be much time to track you down after wars...>:-) [horns, don't you know?]
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 01:30:03 JST

(being a rather abstract look at the same problem we've been kicking about anne frank, bosnia, area writers, and so forth...)

Start with the notion that people largely think in patterns - A happens, B happens, and people derive a pattern mostly by taking the common elements - most differences are tossed and lost. So the worm in the head builds ruts for itself...

Now, what does communication do? back to the old times - we get to send uncle joe around the other side of the mountain, then listen to him to figure out whether or not to go there. if he just says it's more of the same, skip it. If he says there's good eating around the corner, well, maybe we all take a hike. If he says they's monsters and they is coming this way, for sure we all take a walk the other way...

if he says there are golden temples and nymphs and fawns dancing in the mists, we clobber him on the head and have dinner (what a kidder that uncle joe was - there really were mists around there!)

anyway - the key is that we use communication to extend the territory covered by the ruts the little worm doth spin.

's aright? but suppose (just suppose) that there aren't so many virgin frontiers waiting to be crossed. still there are some interesting possibilities hidden behind or between the silky walls of the ordinary ruts. I.e., while the writer may find the easiest task is simply describing what's on the other side of the mountains, an interesting variation on this is helping the little worm break through and build some new ruts right here at home.

Notice that in any case, the job of the writer is never to simply repeat the well-known plodding ruts. even worms get bored, I guess.

This notion of writing as extending, building anew, breaking down, or reworking the perceptual grid through which we structure experience (virtual, fantasized, actual, whatever) is rather interesting to me. If this be true, then it seems as though humor (which generally involves a sharp change in perceptions) may be an integral tool in the process. For that matter, puns (rather than being a corruption of literary purity) are one of the tightest forms of writing, since they always involve two (or more) meanings (well-rutted patterns) being brought into conflict in a very compact form.

Admittedly, many readers may feel more comfortable with slower alterations in the internal scenery. Walk them along the ruts with just enough new stimuli to let them wallow in their torpid placidity, and they will reward you well for it. But perhaps the writer has claustrophobia and wants to open the windows...

hum - this argues that the writer whose background or context differs from that of the readers may have an easier time constructing a message which provides that taste of strangeness that we learned to love in ancient times (exogamy - the love of the stranger - was a practical necessity to survival of the species, as inbreeding does some very bad things in small groups). At the same time, they may have more difficulty linking their message to the well-known ruts of the readers, and I think most readers need some help in getting up speed before they tear through the edges of their own webs... (remember poor uncle joe!)

writing, then, may be considered as one way to counteract the staleness of inbred thoughts, to avoid being trapped in the labyrinth of tiny little passages that all look just the same.

I like that.
tink
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
You remember the advice given to Alice? Practice imagining six impossible things before breakfast? This reminds me of that.

From What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter, p.126 Stranger Than Truth

The Exercise
"A man is having an affair with his secretary. He goes to bed with her in a motel room. When he wakes up in the morning he's in the same motel room but the woman next to him is his wife."
They suggest writing up a couple pages of dialogue, with a few lines of action. Hold the description, assume it's already in place. Personally, I'd suggest go ahead and write the tale. But at the very least, put us in the motel room where the man has just woken to a mystery.

The purpose of this, by the way, is to get exercise -- practice -- at imagining an improbable scene and bringing it to life. This is a separate issue from making a story.

Go ahead. Write it up. Feel free to try some variations -- a comic approach, a tragic swerve, maybe something from the Outer Limits? You might even consider the simple linguistic switch, pointing out that sometimes a secretary is a wife, too? and then there's ... yep, make a list of variations and play that wordy tune again, Sam.

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