Tuesday Challenge - structure, structure, structure

Yes, I'm getting my query package together. It is zooming right along. I have a plan and a girl with a plan is a good thing. Bu.......t! Part of doing this is to write several synopses and in doing that I stumbled upon - no, I didn't stumble upon it - a structure cheat sheet was given to me by  Miriam Forster from Dancing with Dragons, who got it from The Dark Salon - Alexandra Sokoloff - a great site!
I immediately saw it as a great device for beating my synopsis into order. And it has been - I've been quite swoony with it, actually. In doing it (what? you ask) - in filling in the details I have realized that my novel does have quite a solid structure. But it isn't exactly in the same sequence that is outlined in the narrative structure that Alexandra lays out. My mid-point reversal isn't quite at my mid-point and perhaps I have two of them - and the enemy or obstacle is more within than without and uh...the black moment isn't black enough. So I'm tinkering in my mind with the structure of my plot.

I'm sure you all will understand when I say that I don't WANT to be tinkering with the narrative right now. Unh...unh. I want it done and dusted - put into a tidy package and sent off to those who will see it.
In the middle of this I realize one of the trigrams of the I CHING - #64 - Before Completion

 

No. 64,   Before Completion:
“Before Completion. Success.
But if the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing,
Gets his tail in the water.
There is nothing that would further."

           Yesterday's final changing line said, " . . the turning point is at hand. . . .  If she moves forward, good fortune will follow."  [Huang]. 

     And today's future reading says, "You need to move carefully --- like a little fox crossing an ice-covered river."  But you do need to keep moving.

         This is the last hexagram in the I Ching, but it does not signal an end.   It describes "the condition before transition."  [The Image]
 

           ". . . it  could suggest that you are not prepared to see clearly what must be done and take the final steps into the future. This may be a fear of the emptiness that sometimes comes after achieving a goal, or, on a more primal level, a fear of death.  . . .  All aspects of life and human affairs must come to an end and begin anew.  The awareness and acceptance of this is the richness of the human experience."  [Wing]

The Challenge today, dear readers, is to look at your plan with some dispassion - in my case I must not think I'm at the end when there are still danger signs (ice is tricky near the shore). I will keep moving but I will not let my self-imposed dead-line get in the way of my goal to have kept at this novel until it is the best it can be before letting it out. Is there anything in your plan (either your overt or secret plan) that needs adjusting to reflect the circumstances? Perhaps you've decided that you will write in first person because someone said you should for your first novel and yet? Or you have kept to a device, a convention of a genre even though you think, secretly, that it is works against YOUR story?

*special thanks to National Geographic and Pics-site.com for the picture

Now I must get back to work with dear Gwen by my side. For it is writing Tuesday and a rainy cold old day it is too.

Tuesday Challenge - beyond concepts

A short challenge today - I'm over at the Burrowers going on about the Northern Gateway Pipe-line controversy. Do visit...

This is a two-part exercise. The first is to sit quietly and calm your mind. When it is calmed down a bit from all its discurviness, I want you to listen. As you listen you will hear noises, for instance when I do that right now I can hear the sound of Gwen dusting off her mocs, taking out papers, my sweet patootie coughing and moving towards his den, the snow falling (nah, I can't hear that) but as I do it - I start stories - why is Gwen dusting off slippers when by their very nature they are for keeping the dust off her socks? Papers? Isn't she going to write on her computer - doesn't SP have any work outside today? And so forth. In this exercise, let go of the meaning of the sounds, try and hear them without thinking about what created them. If you'd rather do this, soften your gaze and see the forms of what is in front of you without attributing their purpose to them, as if you just landed on the planet - oh black thing, rectangular, soft grey thing through shiny clear surface, etc...

2nd part - take this to your work. Describe something by its seeable reality or hearable reality - without letting us know what it is. This is hard. We want to tell a story with every sense we experience. Keep trying until you are satisfied - then send it off to me if you like!
Here's a photo I took using the same method. It's called a Miksang shot: whoops, can't do that because of my computer woes - maybe later today I will...

Tuesday Challenge - pushing through research

Researching the background of one's novel can be exhilarating by times, or it can be tedious. Sometimes I wonder when I am lost in some web library of information and misinformation on residential schools for Aboriginals in the south-western corner of Alberta, why I bother. Or I go into such a deep and convoluted jungle of fact and whimsy that I cannot find the path back to my own work and the relevance of one thing to another. Or I find something out, unknown to me at any rate, which makes me think I have to take the whole manuscript apart to make it good and true.
Today I turned to The Modern Library Writer's Workshop by Stephen Koch. On his chapter entitled Finishing, Koch discusses how late one might continue researching.

Keep on researching until the last day. According to his wife, Katia, this is what Thomas Mann did. "When he was working on a book, he immersed himself to an extraordinary degree in the relevant subject matter, learning all he could right up until the book was finished. he got hold of everything worth knowing on the topic, collecting a mass of material, but as soon as the book was finished, he forgot it all again. He was no longer interested in it." Late research will function like all crowning touches, its relevance and usability, even at the last minute, will be instantly clear, leaping out at you. Indeed, some of the very best research of all is just such "last-minute" research, precisely because your sense of what is relevant now has a pitch of completeness and sensitivity it has never had before."

I find this tremendously encouraging. I am still left with questions, of course. How does one know what is "everything worth knowing on the topic" and how did he get "hold of" it? This was aeons before  google - it was slogging through actual dusty tomes, searching shelves and catalogues, talking to people by WRITING to them and hoping in a week or so you would hear back. Ye Gads.
Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird has a slightly more folksy take on research. She calls it 'Calling Around' for one thing. She believes that most humans love to be asked questions about what they know and you should bravely pick up the phone and call these people. Of course, you have to know what they are expert in first. "Hey Uncle Phil, know anything about wild plants in the prairies? No? Uh, know anyone who does?"
In Stephen King's On Writing, I finally found something about research. I say finally because King didn't put in so much as table of contents let alone an index so I had to use my intuition as to where it might be. Luckily I've read this great book about a zillion times so it finally showed itself. King says that research is a specialized kind of back story.

And please, if you do need to do research because parts of your story deal with things about which know little or nothing, remember that word back. That's where research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get it. You may be entranced with what you're learning about flesh-eating bacteria, the sewr system of New York, or the I.Q. potential of collie pups, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story.

King ends with this warning: "Just don't end up with the tail wagging the dog; remember that you are writing a novel, not a research paper. The story always comes first."

Today's challenge is to look at your wip and honestly assess what you may have fluffed over that needs to be more thoroughly researched. If you are in the early parts of a story then you may just need to think about what areas you are going to need to research. If you are revising, like me, you may still have some markers holding a place needing research, or you may need to bury your research in the back story and not hit your readers over the head with it. Wherever you are and whatever type of book you may be writing, have a look at your research with a cold eye.
I'll do the same.
These two pictures are of a Pow Wow I went to two summers ago, researching for my book, True.

Tuesday Challenge - if you can practice while distracted you are well trained

I'm very distracted - my younger son is in town for the holidays - my elder son is still working out the kinks in his family - I have clients who are in a state of crisis - my house is messy and folks are coming to visit who haven't been before and who I don't know well (and you know what that means) - the tree is up and that make me feel much the same as when my nails are freshly polished - like everything is prone to insecurity.
When I sat down on my cushion this morning and drew a Lojong slogan card to contemplate it said 'If you can practice while distracted you are well trained'. Right.
Today, before my youngest son comes, and before I make up yet another shopping list (food), and before I check out the two sets of gifts yet to give (Canadian Babes gathering and Gomish- go here to find out about this holiday) I am going to work on my novel. Although chaos is reigning supreme I will practice my craft - I have an idea that I want to get down while it is hot in my brain pan.
Today's challenge is to carefully and fearlessly examine what excuses you come up with to not practice your craft. When you do that - decide that you will say the following words out loud:
"Even though I am distracted by X, I will sit down and write (draw, paint, create) for an hour. I will ignore my distractions by gently bringing my focus back to my work. All my distractions will wait for me or hopefully get lost!"
Let me know how it goes...

Tuesday Challenge - the books we keep close

What books do you keep close to your writing? If you're like me you might have Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Stephen King's On Writing and about a dozen more writing books. You probably have a good dictionary, Fowler's Modern English Usage and Strunk & White's Elements of Style.  Perhaps you have a thesaurus and maybe even a rhyming dictionary. But I bet you have some other books too. Magical books that you keep on hand just for the vibe they radiate. Here are mine - A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot, Brewar's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Barbara Walker's The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred Objects, Joseph Campbell's The Hero with A Thousand Faces, and the I Ching.
Tomorrow I turn 60 and some of these books will be opened and perused - the I Ching, The Hero with a Thousand Faces undoubtedly and perhaps all of them, as I look for portents and signs as how to go forth with this next decade.
The challenge for today is to take one of your magical books and open it up. Shake the dust off it and peer into it for guidance. I once shared a home with a law student. My other room-mate and I often found him lying in bed, asleep, with a heavy tome laying against his face. He said the knowledge would seep down into his brain and perhaps it did as he did become a lawyer. I believe that occasionally, despite his example, we must look into the books that we hold dear. Why do I keep these near - it can't be just the magic of them?

I opened The Hero with A Thousand Faces this morning. It fell open to the chapter entitled 'The Return'. If you know his work on the hero's journey (and what Star Wars' fan doesn't?) you will recognize The Return as an essential part of the journey.After you have accomplished the quest you must still return with the goods. Often the hero refuses this part of the journey - at least initially. Included among these are the Buddha who was tempted to not communicate his awakening, and several saints of the Christian sort, who died in ecstasy. Do I get this? It means that when you finally get to your bliss state you hang out there, chatting with the angels and drinking mead or mimosas or whatever the nectar of the gods is. Returning is the act of bringing your hard won booty to the world. It isn't enough to hide out in your garret, thrilled to bits with your wonderful prose. You MUST bring it to the world or it is all for naught and you've only fed your ego.
The return is almost as fraught as the initial going forth. Think of Orpheus and Eurydice. Who could imagine that you could rescue your love from the netherworld? But he almost did - at the end his backward glance, his human frailty giving a sad ending to a glorious story.
Today I will think of The Return and what it means in the context of my novel. I will consider where my protagonist has refused The Return and when she gets it, making sure that I have both of these clearly explicated. How about you? What magical book are you going to open today? What will you take from it?

Tuesday Challenge

As the New Year approaches the mind goes to goals - to opportunities missed or challenges left undone. I will wait for the actual new year before challenging you to make a new list of goals but today's post will be a getting ready for the same.
Your challenge is to write down every thought you've had around your creativity that includes  regret, remorse, jealousy or envy. Write it all down in gloriously petulant fashion. It could look like this:

1. My third grade teacher made me mouth the words in the choir because my voice stunk.
2. I didn't get any grant proposals accepted at Canada Council.
3. One of my friends just published her third book.
4. I didn't enter any competitions with my work because I decided there was no point.

You get the idea. Now the second part of this challenge will be to look at each of the items on your list and decide what you can do about it NOW. And by now - I mean right now or in the following weeks. For instance for the 3rd one, I could call my friend and ask her out for lunch, on me, and ask her if she would be willing to tell me about her experience of getting where she is today. I could look up competitions that seem workable and make up a competition schedule for the new year. I could find out when Canada Council is next taking proposals and get back on that horse. I could join a choir. You get it.

Now go! Here is a picture of my granddaughter singing in her choir. Hannah's the one with the hair band and no glasses - right in the centre.

Tuesday Challenge - counting our blessings

For today's challenge I have dipped into  Write for Your Lives by Joseph Sestito.  Sestito is a Buddhist and writes about how Buddhist teachings can inspire creative writing. From the chapter called Using Your Precious Human Life to the Fullest  he writes about developing our sense of auspiciousness. To do this he suggests that we get in touch with how lucky we are to have arrived in our particular situation. He goes further and suggests that we write down everything from the most general auspicious details of our situation (I would say that I was born in a favoured and wealthy country at a time that is good for both women and men etc...) and our particular blessings (I met various people who mentored me in enlightened ways). You can do this for whatever particular spiritual practice you may have or just for your sense of meaningful existence. As a writer please go on to list those things that gave birth in you to that discipline - i.e. -

• I have a partner who supports my writing even when it is a financial burden. 
• I have a friend who is a published writer and generous with her help. 
• I have a strong network of writers on the web who have created a community of encouragement. 

You get the idea. So, write up your list and put it somewhere you can read it daily. I would like you to read it daily for a month - slowly and with careful intention. If you meditate you could put it on your cushion so it is part of your practice. You might put it over your writing desk or even on your fridge. Don't be shy with it - or self-conscious. If someone sees it what might they think? That you are grateful for your precious life, that is what. After you have done this for a month keep it handy for any times you slip back into lethargy or feel baulky about your practice as a writer. As you work through the next month feel free to add to your list as ideas arise. 

What do you count as a blessing in your writing life?

Tuesday Challenge - a monologue

Sometimes a writer needs to give his or her protagonist a good long monologue. There is too much to be said  or the passion of the speaker demands the pause that a monologue creates. This is difficult to do well but wonderful when it works. It can carry so much of the story and of the character. For many reasons this is a tool that is good to have in your back pocket. For those of us who got our chops down writing for theatre it is a natural but for people who come to writing through short stories and novels - a bit of a leap.

Your challenge today is to write a monologue of at least three pages. Don't forget to include the interruptions - those pauses while the speaker moves, picks up a glass and takes a sip, forgets himself in reverie or gazes out the window. These interruptions will make the rhythm of the piece, so do spend some time with it. And remember that the voice and the gestures are all intrinsic to who the speaker is. The purpose of this is to learn ways to let your character make long speeches that aren't boring or stilted. Do I need to remind you to read it out loud? I thought not.

Let me know how it goes.

Thank you to John Gardiner's iconic book The Art of Fiction for this exercise.

Sense and Sensibility - the Tuesday Challenge

Here we have three words - Sense, sensible and sensibility. I've put in the Oxford Dictionary meanings for the three for your perusal. In all honesty I haven't included everything - for instance there is a scientific meaning of sense that isn't helpful. 

Sense : noun:1 a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch:the bear has a keen sense of smell which enables it to hunt at dusk2 a feeling that something is the case:she had the sense of being a political outsider3 [mass noun] a sane and realistic attitude to situations and problems:he earned respect by the good sense he showed at meetings4 a way in which an expression or a situation can be interpreted; a meaning:it is not clear which sense of the word ‘characters’ is intended in this passageverb1 perceive by a sense or senses:with the first frost, they could sense a change in the daysbe aware of (something) without being able to define exactly how one knows:she could sense her father’s anger risinghe could sense that he wasn’t likedSENSIBLE - adjective
1 done or chosen in accordance with wisdom or prudence; likely to be of benefit:I cannot believe that it is sensible to spend so much2 (of an object) practical and functional rather than decorative:Mum always made me have sensible shoes
Origin:
late Middle English (also in the sense ‘perceptible by the senses’): from Old French, or from Latin sensibilis, from sensus  (see sense)                                                                                                                                                                                          
Sensibilities :noun 

[mass noun]

1 the quality of being able to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences; sensitivity:the study of literature leads to a growth of intelligence and sensibility(sensibilities) a quality of delicate sensitivity that makes one liable to be offended or shocked:the scale of the poverty revealed by the survey shocked people’s sensibilities

I bring these dictionary meanings in for two reasons. The first is because I love to go a-hunting in the dictionary - checking out the original meanings of words - especially common words that we might use without thinking. The second is because I want you to have a firm grasp on the root word 'sensible' for this week's challenge. Please refer to the origin of the word - which I've placed in a peachy colour intended on having you remember with Proustian delight - the feel of peach fuzz to the fingertips, the faint perfumed scent arising from the peach, the delight of that scent morphing into sweetness on the tongue and the barely perceptible sound as the peach morsel is swallowed.

Today's challenge is to take a piece of your writing in which you are having difficulty. Ignore the difficulty - you may be having a structural problem or a character who won't behave - and apply your sensibility to the scene. Go WAY overboard. Just load it up with as many sensory details as you can. Be insane with it. Don't worry - this is play and you cannot fall off the world. When you're finished you can reign it in. But for now - explode those sensory details. Revel in it. Trust me.

Here is a piece of cheese-cake for my sister, Jude! It is her birthday today and for the next month we are twins. Yay! Hope you have a swell day my deary-deary-deario!

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The Tuesday Challenge - enriching the setting

I have an image in my mind from my trip. When I go to visit my step-mum I attend a water exercise class in her building. I went Friday morning and, as usual, I wasn't disappointed. The pool is surrounded in windows and there are plants inside and out. There are skylights and the November light hitting the water and the lovely women of an age provoked a transcendent moment in my heart. I so wished I had brought my camera so that I could share that - the way the light lay like honey-comb hexagons, the women's arms moving through the water, the looks on their faces as they tenderly took care of their bodies - the birds gathering on small bushes outside the windows, the custodian looking through the window and counting for maximum occupation rules, the conversation that trilled from the sublime to the bizarre, the laughter, the intention. And then there was the feelings in my own body - the water was so warm and delightful, the smell was not chlorine but some salty thing they use and there were spots where, if you stood there, you would feel a draft from the air exchange.
The Challenge today is for you to find a piece in your story that needs an enrichment of setting. Perhaps you have it all in your mind but you haven't quite gotten it across yet. Or perhaps you need to feel your way as to why you might have chosen a certain setting - a diner in a small town - the way the napkin holder is flanked by the ketchup bottle and the salt and pepper; the city garage where your protagonist is hiding from a murderer - the car with the dust and the words 'wash me' on it; the story-telling tipi with the light coming in making strange shadows on the canvas. Go into it in exquisite detail -see what your memory can conjure up or if possible, go find the location once again. This is not the time to hold back - over do it, you can draw it back later. Now is the time to make that setting as rich as possible - use all of your senses. Did you know that was the proper meaning of the word 'sensible'? It was. It didn't mean dry and pragmatic and logical - it meant acting from what your senses told you.
Write fat - get it all in and make sure you use all your senses and then you can edit thin and get just the right amount of setting in. Push it for exactly the correct words to evoke the image you first had in your mind.
I don't have pictures here yet - but I will later. Gwen's here and I must write!

Here are some pictures but you can also go over to my other blog - Living the Complicated Simple Life to see many more!

Tuesday Challenge

Greetings All Dear Readers!

Today is the first day of my new Challenge series - not a thing is new but the day it is presented on. This will be my 68th challenge! Here is the first one I wrote: 

I challenge each and every one of to a duel! Nah, I don't. I've decided that Friday will now be Challenge Day on this blog. I will challenge my readers to do something different each week and you all can let me know how it goes (or not - you are free of course to ignore challenge day but you'll be missing out on lots of fun).
Here is today's challenge - a walking quest. Yes! Get off your duffs and walk somewhere in your neighbourhood or near where you work. This can be a short walk but you are to bring back something creative. If you are writers you can bring back an image, an overheard conversation or perhaps even the genesis for your next work. If you are fibre artists - look for something to inspire you in a way that you haven't worked before - photographers, visual artists - same thing. If you see yourself primarily as a householder or work where creativity does not flourish - use your inspiration to create a table setting, a letter to your old aunt, a fridge poem, a desk shrine, or as the seed of a prayer or contemplation. Do not restrict your inspiration to nature, there is much in the constructed world that could be inspiring. Look beyond what the things are (a sunset, a plastic bag blowing down the street, a mother's hand touching the hair of her child) to what you see without laying those ideas on them ( a splash of red orange, a dancing form, the texture of lines intersecting). Above all - allow yourself to be surprised by the moment.
I look forward to your responses...

That is how I began on Feb.5, 2010 - a year and nine months ago...

Here is today's Tuesday Challenge -

This one is taken from Joseph Sestito's wonderful book Write for Your Lives - it is about recovering the process of writing - the why, in our bodies, of writing. Before your next writing session I want you to sit quietly and imagine something that you do in which you experience flow. Something in which your mind and body are so synchronized that you are able to turn off the inner judge and just experience the joy of the doing. Maybe it is skiing or riding a horse. Perhaps it is when you knit or walk your dog. Close your eyes and vividly imagine you are doing whatever it is you do to get into this state. Bring your mind to every sense - what are you smelling, hearing, tasting, touching, seeing? Make it as vivid as you can and realize that this is something, as a writer, that you are probably pretty good at - imagining a state of mind! As soon as you have really got that feeling in your cells, open your eyes and begin writing. If you find yourself getting all tight again, close your eyes and go back to that state. Your nervous system will thank you and so will your writing!

I achieve flow when taking photos. So that's where I'll be going...
Tell me how it goes and what helps you keep in the best state for writing.