shakespearemom

Another fellow blogger, www.eloquentbooks.com/BetterThanMagic.html, commented on one of my blogs that we should just see the world as one God made and stop worrying about which one of us is his favorite. And that reminds me of both our current religious divisions and of past ones. It also reminds me of a story (doesn’t everything), and since I am not the first to tell a story to get a point across, and I love metaphor, I will tell this one. It was first written down in Boccaccio’s The Decameron.

A man named Melchizedek was a Jewish merchant living in the Middle East. He was renowned for his wisdom, and a local Muslim ruler decided to put his wisdom to the test. He called him to his throne room under the pretext of wanting to do business with him, and when Melchizedek came, the ruler claimed he’d been pondering the relationship between the three major religions (in that area)…Melchizedek would either claim Judaism was the true one, since Melchizedek was a Jew, or would flatter this rule by saying that Islam was the true religion.

But that isn’t what Melchizedek did. He instead told the story of a King who had three sons. Now, for generations, the King’s family had passed a special ring down from father to son. Each father chose one of his son’s to receive the ring, and then that King, in turn, passed the ring onto his chosen son. Yet this man, knowing he was close to death, could not choose. He loved all three of his sons equally. So, instead of choosing, he had his smiths create two other rings–two exact replicas of the original ring. He took the three rings, and when he was very close to death, he called in the eldest son. And he told him, “You are my chosen one,” and gave him the ring.

Then he called in the middle son, told him, “You are my chosen one,” and gave him the ring.

And he did the same with the youngest son: “You are my chosen one,” and gave him the ring. And then he died.

No doubt he hoped giving each son his blessing would help each one strive towards greatness, but the three sons have chosen since to spend all their energies squabbling about who has the “real” ring. Yet, in reality, all three sons hold the real ring in their hands, and their choices should be regarding what to do with the gift they have been given.

This is a religious metaphor, but it reflects on all of us, religious or not. It is easy for us to spend all of our time and energies looking at what others have been given, trying to outdo them or negate their gifts so that we make ourselves feel better. But what should we really be doing with those gifts? Using them.

How are you using yours?

I began watching a new show this year, one that I only watch while my kids are busy or at school. It’s Crusoe, and while it has a formulaic plot and falls into the melodramatic pattern of old Errol Flynn movies, I still enjoy the hell out of it. More than likely, it won’t last, so I DVR every episode, watching every frame with relish.

Is it good literature? Nope. Will it last the season? I’d be surprised if it did. Then why do I watch? One word: Beefcake. The two main characters, Robinson Crusoe and Friday, are, frankly, HOT. And this is the first show in a long time where I was as attracted major characters. At first I was embarrassed to be so shallow–I, the ephemeral life-of-the-mind sort of intellectual–yet once I realized my reasons for tuning in, I relaxed a bit and decided I didn’t always have to be Ms. Smartypants. Two cute men could be eye candy, and that didn’t mean my IQ had suddenly fallen to neaderthal levels.

Besides, it’s these simple pleasures that keep me going when my book isn’t generating any interest, when I’m stuck on some plot detail and can’t find my way out. And sometimes neglecting the thought process–and just feeling–is exactly what I need to get back on track. My second novel is filled with such moments (and, no, it isn’t a romance). Writing these sorts of scenes improves my mood, even if it doesn’t further my intellectual goals. And rereading them generates the same warm feelings (am I getting too graphic?).

In fact, Crusoe reminds me a lot of Homer’s Odyssey, for even though I know the main character wants nothing more than to get home to his wife, I can still enjoy his muscular chest, his blue eyes, and the attraction he stirs in women who meet him on the island. It isn’t just the journey…it’s also how he gets there that can be fascinating. And all this makes for a better story, in the end.

So, look at your own writing, and ask yourself this: are your characters too cerebral? What’s driving them, beyond their “big picture” goals? What other needs do they have, beyond the intellectual? You might be surprised you have the same needs they do. So, you’re the writer. Satisfy them.

You’d be surprised how many other people may be satisfied as well.

The creepy fog outside, which settled in last night as soon as the sun went down, has done more than add a bit of mystery to the day. My mind has been weighed down for several days by the opinions of others, held strongly, stated as if they were facts, complete with angst, anger, fear, and a sort of overt sneer.

I have a friend back in Oklahoma, and one in Kansas, who are both very conservative, and one of them is, alas, passionately religious (not spiritual–religious–for the two are not the same). And recently one of them forwarded about TEN messages to me, all of which espoused some sort of hatred or anger, and pushed for a change in the world. For instance, one forward criticized Oprah for supposedly deciding that she was God, and yet it’s link to the “confession” she made was actually a discussion between her and another person, where she said God had to be found within us, not outside of us. And that happens to be something I agree with completely. 

Another couple of forwards described the possibility of gay marriage in terrifically frightening terms, but I belong to an “open and affirming” church, and several gay couples attend. In this respect, I am even more liberal than Obama.

In yet a third set of forwards, she was sending a message about some small business owner who realized–because Obama had been elected–that the economy was only going to be worse now (because, I suppose, Obama had been in office all this time? No logic here). He figured he’d have to lay off at least six employees, so he decided to choose the six people who had Obama stickers on their back bumpers.

Now, I don’t mean to just flaunt my liberal feathers out for everyone to see, but I am always shocked by the tendency for us to adopt opinions and then place a fog around ourselves, blinding ourselves not only to other opinions, but to the possibility that anyone could believe differently than we do. I really don’t have a problem with her believing the way she does (even if, to me, it’s a bit frightening), but I have a significant problem with her assuming that, since I go to church, or am a mom, or merely know here, I must feel exactly the same way.

But this isn’t just her problem. It’s mine, too. I know others disagree with me, on an intellectual level, but emotionally I have trouble dealing with their differences, especially when I’m passionate about something. And that affects my writing, in so many ways. My characters, however much I design them not to be me, still present a world that is of my making, and the messages are ones I believe in. The evil characters represent evils I especially detest (bigotry, violence, infidelity, selfishness), and the protagonists show qualities I especially admire (resourcefulness, bravery, fidelity, passion).

Yet everyone doesn’t react to my characters the same way. A single infringement on their own set of values (say, if my current main character, a white girl, finds love with a black boy–a similar plot twist to my second novel, when the main character loves a boy of mixed race who also happens to be deaf), could make readers reject my books. They could find my liberal nonviolence too hard to bear when protagonists are faced with violence (my characters do not, as a rule, fight with weapons, and they do not seek anyone’s destruction, no matter how much those characters seek to kill the protagonists). They might be offended by the portrayal of parents in my first and third novels–I know my own parents would, were they to read them. The truth is, all sorts of people could hate my plays and novels for all sorts of ideological reasons.

Does that mean I need to change my novels? Nope. It means I need to lift the fog, that I need to be prepared for the reactions of others, both positive and negative, and know that those kinds of value judgments will be made about my work. But I cannot make my works different, just to please those whose ideas do not coincide with mine. My work needs to be mine more than it needs to be marketable. 

Perhaps, too, by entertaining an idea they find in my works, some readers might actually have their own fog lifted, and see the world in all its complexity. I can only hope to make that kind of change possible.

I’ll begin today’s blog with a story: 

Today, my (notorious) list of things to do included several “find” commands. In other words, I had to find my ledger in which I keep my writing income and expenses tallied, to find a missing book of sheet music, to find my school e-mail code so I could use it in class tonight, to find my paperwork so that I could renew my car’s registration (and make it legal to drive again). While at it, I reorganized my son’s room, which meant finding puzzle pieces, lids to boxes, game pieces, and various locations so that I could store everything I’d found. 

Interestingly, though, choosing a thing to find often led, not to finding the object, but to finding something else (for the sake of sanity, I’ve decided to stop putting the word in italics). I searched in the hope chest for my missing music (that’s where I keep all my music, as my hope chest is also my piano bench). Instead of finding the music there, I found my writing ledger. One object down. I went out to the car to search for the music (I take my music everywhere with me), but there I found the old vehicle registration and my son’s lost mittens (not even on my list!).

I then switched gears out of frustration, and decided to search the shelves downstairs for my e-mail information. Not only did I find that, but I also happened upon the very Christmas music I’d been missing. And in the meantime I found various game pieces and puzzle pieces, blocks and cars scattered through everything. Some may very well have been lost since we moved in!

So, that’s the lesson. Can’t find something? Look for something else. You never know what might turn up. 

What does that have to do with writing? Everything. Stuck on a scene? Write a different one, leaving space (and a note) to remind you the scene still needs doing. Stuck on a whole project? Go to another one, one that you’ve been stuck on previously. Don’t just sit there at the computer, staring at a blank screen. Switch gears. Who knows, the other project may seem unrelated to your first work, but the work you do on it may lead directly back to the first work, and may make it a much better work.

Lost something? Your sense of humor? Your feel for a particular character? Your desire to work on your novel? Your marbles?) Look for something else. You never know what you’ll find.

So, what have you lost recently, and what did you find when you went looking for it?

I just finished the third installment of Libba Bray’s trilogy…and it was as I’ve described books to be: imperfect, but with flashes of brilliance. I think the hardest part for me, as far as her books are concerned, is how long it takes for stuff to happen. Gemma, the main character, takes about 800 pages to figure out what she needs to do, and all the time she does this, people are pulling her in other directions, none of them trying to look at the big picture except for her. But in the end, she does act, the one clear-thinking, unselfish person in the world, surrounded by a load of people who don’t understand what needs to be done, or don’t care enough to make the sacrifice. 

Frankly, I’d love to believe that I am the one person in the world looking at the big picture, that I can be the Frodo in a world of others who turn creepy and violent in the mere presence of The Ring,   the One, the Anointed, the only possible savior of a world gone wrong. I’d love to think of myself as the “special” one, with gifts nobody else has, the one whose smell attracts vampires more than any other human (think Twilight), yet who can somehow resist and defeat them. 

I’m sure that desire what Libba Bray, J. R. R. Tolkien, Stephanie Meyers, and even J.K. Rowling are all working from. Isn’t that the reason so many superhero comics are turned into films (and, of course, I own most of those superhero movies–I am especially fond of Spider Man and Wolverine).

Perhaps this is part of the suspension of reality–our desire for fantasy–for in our ordinary lives, we are, well, rather ordinary. We don’t fight off supervillains, or vampires…just jerks who hog the road and caustic fellow employees. Yet, even with those people, we rarely act. Sure, their comments burn at us, and we might rant at them in private, but we rarely have the strength to do more than that. We don’t act, even if we long to.

Now, I’m not deluded. I know I can’t fly, I know I can’t turn things to ice, or lift trains, or climb up buildings. My four-year-old son would like to pretend he can shoot webs out of his hands, but even at his age he knows he can’t. But we can all act…we can all take a chance here and there and work towards the common good. 

So, that’s what I’m trying to do, in my own small, unheroic way. I do what a mom should, raising my kids as well as I can, and I write, and write, and write, here and on my novels, hoping that they will inspire others to act according to their own conscience, instead of watching the ugly stuff of the world go on, without saying or doing anything about it.

I’m no superhero, but I might just inspire one some day.

Does anyone truly know who she is? I think of this every time I see someone’s blog on Today.com, and most have the tab, whether on the side or at the top, saying “All About Me.” It took me a few days of navigating around my page to find this tab and actually put something in it, but even when I did, I was struck by how little I really knew about myself, by how little I could put there. 

Most bloggers, at least those whose blogs I have visited, put info about their professional careers…what they do for a living, how many dogs they have, kids, spouses, favorite hobbies. But is that who we really are, or what we are? Are we only made up of our relationships, of what we like to do in our spare time (or whether we have any spare time at all)? Aren’t we more than that? 

I’d like to think we are, or at least I have the desperate hope that I am (I am the center of my own universe, after all). But if I am, how do I discover–or uncover–this person? It is impossible to see myself as others see me. Even if they are willing to tell me the truth of what they see, there is no way for me to accept it (good or bad) without qualification, for I have my own filters through which to see myself and others, and those filters color everything.

I think my writing is one way I venture into the “Who am I?” question, for I place qualities I believe I hold within my characters, watching those qualities move the characters in different ways. If the characters act the way I believe I would act, I know that quality is one I likely share. Writing fiction also gives me the chance to try out other choices, choices I wonder about, choices I might have made a long time ago, which may have significantly altered my life now.

But is it my choices that make me who I am, or are they, like my relationships, my hobbies, my profession, merely the result of the authentic ME coming out? It’s funny, but even though I tended to be a rather tractable young woman, I’ve made so many choices that step completely outside the list of possibilities other people gave me as choices. I’ve chosen so many times to do things others didn’t want me to do, and I keep doing it. 

Perhaps I am merely being rebellious, but I don’t think so. I feel more as if I am listening, doing what I can drown out the voices of others–others who are sometimes VERY insistent–so that I can hear the leanings of my soul and follow that path. And for the most part, I am content to follow the path rather blindly, not knowing where any particular choice might lead, but trusting that I will be okay. 

And when I make a choice out of obligation–and that happens at times–I sometimes find my heart wraps itself around the choice pretty quickly. If it doesn’t, an I feel myself bending elsewhere, I change eventually, following a new path that feels better. 

Perhaps there is no reason to figure out WHO I am, as long as I follow the yearnings, feed my soul, and willingly follow the path of my dreams. Perhaps that is who I am.

I’ve read the writing of some of my readers, and I know several of you have no need to read this particular blog, since your dialogue already fulfills its requirements, but I am amazed at how many published books contain practically no dialogue, or the most terrible, insipid, useless dialogue. 

Now, most dialogue difficulties come from not using it. In beginning writers, the tendency is not to use it at all, but just to tell us, third-person, what was said. Yet that can’t pull readers into the scene the same way real dialogue can. It’s the difference between saying the beach was “beautiful” and actually describing elements on the beach, the hot sands, the whoosh of the waves coming in, the seagulls pattering along the bubbling crests of each shallow wave, looking for fish. It’s the difference between showing and telling. And it’s makes a difference. 

Others who do learn to use dialogue at all create a pseudo-real world filled with bland exchanges that have nothing to offer the action, character development, suspense, or anything else. They might as well include stuff like:

“Can we talk?”

“Sure, but first I need to go to the restroom.”

“Okay.” I waited a few minutes, longer than I wanted to. And then she came back. “Took you long enough.”

“Well, when you gotta go, you gotta go.”

BLECCCHHH! I’ve pushed it a bit farther than normal, but this is as lame as it gets. Everything is “Hey, how are you?” and “Fine, thanks.” No information is truly exchanged at all. The dialogue simply stinks, and it stinks to the point that it would be better if it didn’t exist at all.

Yet I can’t live without dialogue. Life of Pi nearly killed me with its lack of dialogue, for I LOVE a good conversation. And here’s why, here’s what I need dialogue to do:

1.  Show something revealing about the characters. Even if the other characters don’t catch on, don’t see what I see as a reader, the dialogue says something to me about their past, their vulnerabilities, their needs, desires. I know more about that character every time she speaks, if dialogue is done well.

2.  Create a change in the relationship involved in the conversation. Having two characters rehash everything over and over is boring, but if each one leaves the conversation slightly different than when they left it (or even if one of them does), I can sense the shift and I see the story progress. It isn’t enough that the dialogue SOUND like the person who said it. Just having the dialogue be “in character” isn’t sufficient. Keeping it static makes the characters static (a.k.a. “boring). I want to see the characters develop, just as I develop and change every day.

3. Move the plot forward. I am an impatient reader, especially when nothing is happening (see previous post on action), yet that action need not involve physical muscles, explosions, the Grand Canyon rising to the height of the Rocky Mountains, etc. It can be very subtle, the slight shift of the eyes when one person says just the wrong thing, a short word to end a conversation until the morning. I desire change above all, something that makes what is generally going on happen more quickly, more dramatically, or in a way I did not expect. I cannot bear conversations in which nothing substantive happens. 

4.  Pare down the action to its most interesting. Now, if I were to transcribe my conversations with my husband every evening, and then try to reread them, they would bore me. And I’m one of the participants. Don’t try to make dialogue so realistic that it has to reflect real conversation like a looking glass. Shakespeare condensed twenty years of action into a few months when he wrote King Lear, and I would like to see that same paring down when I read. Tell me the good stuff, not ALL the stuff. 

For me, those are the big four rules…the major goals of dialogue. Any suggestions about what to add? 

If you want some practice, try writing an entire short story only in dialogue. Then put a title on it and call it a PLAY. It’s good practice, even if you’ve never been to live theatre and have no intention of going. Who knows, perhaps some of the dialogue, fitting in with narration, will turn into the best short story you’ve ever written. Good dialogue can do that. 

I’ve decided to move around times a bit. I wrote 4 pages of my novel yesterday, after I wrote my morning blog, so if you see a blog from me, that means I wrote the day before. If you don’t see a blog at all, I never got to write (darn!). This morning, my mind is a whirlwind of action. Not only do I have a to-do list a mile long (that’s about half a mile longer than  usual), but I also have all sorts of big events coming up in my novel, creepy, scary stuff (and the chapter I just finished left Emme unconscious on the floor of her bedroom, wrapped up in the sheets torn from her bed!), stuff I can’t wait to write. I am also on the third novel of the Libba Bray trilogy, and even in the second chapter stuff is happening. Perhaps it is the part of me that remains the most adolescent. Perhaps it’s because I am easily bored. Whatever the reason, I am highly motivated by ACTION. I’ve seen movies with very interesting characters, interesting enough to get me to keep watching for an hour or so. Sadly, in many of those same movies, after an hour of film, nothing has actually happened, and I wince (after I yawn), pulling up the guide so I can switch channels. When I say no action, that most certainly doesn’t mean the film is devoid of car chases, killing, or immensely frantic movement. What it means is that nothing is happening. The characters, interesting as they are, aren’t developing at all, and after countless scenes nothing has changed substantially. I discuss film here, but I believe the novel is more prone to this kind of difficulty. Writers may become so enamored by their own words that they neglect what the words describe. Suddenly the female character has the same conversation with her mother three times over, wandering through the beautiful countryside when she isn’t repeating her previous behavior. In other words, nothing is happening!!! Perhaps the best way to avoid such a problem (beyond outlining, which I have discussed in a previous blog about planning) is for writer to ask herself, “What is happening?” If the answer is predominantly, “The protagonist is staring off into space” or “talking” or even if that character is repeating the same action over and over (and over), something needs to give. Each scene should build upon the last, pushing the novel’s development just a bit further, telling us a bit more about the character or his/her situation, moving us towards the climactic conclusion. Yes, we might all enjoy a day when we have nothing on our to-do lists, and when we do nothing more than watch TV all day and eat, but that’s a day once in a while. I, for one, detest such days. A day nothing happens is a day wasted. And a novel should be MORE interesting than my life, not less (or why read at all?).

Truth: I have not yet written three pages. In fact, I didn’t write three pages yesterday, either. But I DREW… and I’ve decided that this kind of creativity is just as good.    I am Art Docent for my daughter’s class this year, and yesterday I did a session with them around Georgia O’Keefe, best known for her paintings of huge versions of flowers (HUGE). And then the second grade class, along with the teacher and I, took out crayons and created big versions of winter things, holly, ivy, Santa Claus hats, snowmen, etc. My holly berries turned into silver dollars, and the leaves were also huge. And I and the kids and their teacher LOVED doing it.  I couldn’t finish in the hour at the school (most of the time I was helping and encouraging them), so I brought it home and did some “homework” last night. The class told me specifically they wanted to see it when it was done, and I promised I’d put it in my daughter’s back pack so she could bring it back to school. And drawing last night was simply WONDERFUL! So soothing, so calming, a delightful couple of hours before I went to bed. And I lay in bed wondering why I didn’t do that more often, why I didn’t seek out that form of creativity the way I do music, theatre, and writing. And then the answer came to me. Of course, TIME. What is it you do not have time for? 

[I’ve decided to paste this from my new “Pages” program, for perhaps then my paragraphs will show up. The last blog didn’t contain paragraph separations, and I find stuff much easier to read if it’s split up.]I just graded through another set of student papers this morning, and doing so always reminds me of the importance of having a purpose when one is writing anything. Obviously, sometimes that purpose is quite clear: with a resume and cover letter, the purpose is to get a job and FAST. If you are writing a letter to the editor, you are either commending someone (another letter writer, a political figure, or an article in a previous paper) or whining about someone (ditto on the last parenthetical).Yet, with other forms of writing, your purpose is often at least two-fold. For instance, with an essay you write for class, you want, above all, to get a decent grade, so that you can pass the class and go on to the next class (or graduate). Yet your purpose in choosing the topic and writing about it is not merely that (or at least, it shouldn’t be). You want to examine a certain topic you find interesting, you think readers might learn from what you are writing, and/or you believe strongly that your topic needs more attention and deserves action. Now, not having these other purposes doesn’t make your essay lame, but your essay will be better if it has them, for it will be far more meaningful for your readers–and for you.Novel and playwriting is no different. Sure, the primary purpose of writing a novel is to sell it and see it published (and then go around the world reading from it, for even more profit from speaking fees). However, many highly marketable novels are nothing more than market design. If you want good examples, just scan the bestseller list during any week, and ask yourself, “Which of these books will be known at all in twenty years?” The answer is a very few. Most are dead as soon as they are read.I’m sure you’ve read them…entertaining books–even funny ones–books that kept you reading page after page, chapter after chapter. But when you think about them again, if you ever do, you can’t remember a single character, anything that happened, or even what the book was about overall. Or even if you can remember, it doesn’t seem that important. I’ve finished books, and immediately come to that conclusion…entertaining, but nothing more.I suppose my question is, who wants to write that? I certainly don’t. I get chills thinking about some of Shakespeare’s plays, and I know so many of his character names by heart–and those names aren’t easy to remember. I want my stuff to do the same, to draw people in, enthrall them, and to last long after they have finished the book for the first time.Maybe, if I have enough purpose for my books, beyond the commercial, I can even get readers to go back to them, time after time. I sure hope I can. I want my books to do something real, something permanent, to those who read them.