Yesterday I posted three microfiction stories. As I sat down to write my story notes today, I realized that I have more to say about these stories than there are words in each of the stories themselves. (Read them here.)
I decided to break this into several posts, because I think it's worth talking about. So I'll start with Hemingway... (Doesn't all modern fiction start with Hemingway?) Here's the story again for those who don't feel like clicking on the link:
"For sale. Baby shoes. Never used."
That's the whole story in its entirety. Six words. I understand Hemingway wrote it to give an example of how short a story can be. I don't believe he actually published it anywhere.
I've heard tell that some people think this ultra short mini-micro-story is a masterpiece. I am not one of them. It's kind of a dancing bear. (The point of a dancing bear is not that it dances well, but that it dances at all.)
The problem is that the story itself only happens in your head after reading it. Which is fine for a poem, or an aphorism, or anything too clever for words. (Or too clever for too many words as the case may be.)
And yet, Hemingway's story is as close as you can get to a story in six words. As a matter of fact, I would say that on some level it meets my criteria of building tension and releasing it. The key is the audience reaction to the first four words. "For sale. Baby shoes." Does that raise tension? Yes, and no. I mean, there is nothing dramatic about an ad for baby shoes, people sell them all the time.
At the same time, there is something visceral about babies. They are utterly helpless creatures of enormous value, and it is the biological duty of the species to protect them. So maybe we have a preconscious reaction of alertness.
Then there's the payoff... "Never used." What? Oh my god, dead baby? Miscarriage? What went wrong? These questions follow from the fact that it's a story by Hemingway (something deep and tragic must have happened) and the psychology of the whole "baby alert" thing. But then, imho, you have to think, "But... really? Is there any reason to think they aren't being sold because the parents simply recieved too many gifts of baby shoes? Or because they're pink and the baby was a boy?"
In my opinion, the story is bullshit, because it has no meaning, especially by Hemingway's New Critical standards. He and his followers had this thing about how the story is only about what's IN the story, and, not about what you know about the author, or the point of view of the reader. And there is nothing whatsoever to raise tension, or to pay it off, that's actually in the story. Not even an implication. There might be a baby involved, or might not. It's like saying "look, puppies!" (Is that a story - one word set up, one word pay off? Maybe I'm better than Hemingway!)
If you look at other criteria - a decision made, a change - it doesn't make it at all.
So in the end, I have to say that even though Hemingway's baby shoes story sorta qualifies as a story (if you squint real hard and don't take a New Critical approach) it's not a very good story. Even Hemingway can only go so far with six words, after all.
Tomorrow, we'll talk about Clarence Darrow, and then we'll finally get to the persistent duck.
See you in the funny papers.
Daring to live life as a full time writer, with or without success.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
A Quick Update - I've got a Kindle!
I will be posting the first of my story notes on yesterday's stories in a short while. (I realized I have a lot to say about those short short short stories -- more than the stories themselves say - so I will post it in several parts.)
But I had to pause to give an update: a friend bought me a Kindle. In many ways I still prefer my iPod Touch. The navigation and small size in particular are very convenient -- but I am having a very good time reading Doan and Carstairs mystery novellas (1940's pulp noir with a light touch, lots o' fun) on the Kindle tonight. I'll have a review of the Kindle and of the series as soon as I've read a few of the novellas.
I'm a little behind on getting my next collection up on Kindle as a result. And on my taxes. I hope, however, to get the short story collection finished and posted tomorrow or the next day.
In the meantime, I have unpublished "The Enchanted Tree" so it can be revamped into different collections. The two grown-up fantasy stories in that collection will be in the new Bellhound collection. I'll re-publish the Enchanted Tree as a small children's story collection a little later. (Those who have bought it should still be able to download it at will from various ebook outlets -- they keep them in archive. It will also take a while to clear from the shelves of some of the smaller outlets. That's one of the reasons why I am waiting on republishing the main collection.)
AND I still have to revamp my dare goals, given all my great ideas and the pile of stories I need to get out and published.
Now, on to Hemingway, and why I don't think what some people call his "masterpiece" is really so hot.
But I had to pause to give an update: a friend bought me a Kindle. In many ways I still prefer my iPod Touch. The navigation and small size in particular are very convenient -- but I am having a very good time reading Doan and Carstairs mystery novellas (1940's pulp noir with a light touch, lots o' fun) on the Kindle tonight. I'll have a review of the Kindle and of the series as soon as I've read a few of the novellas.
I'm a little behind on getting my next collection up on Kindle as a result. And on my taxes. I hope, however, to get the short story collection finished and posted tomorrow or the next day.
In the meantime, I have unpublished "The Enchanted Tree" so it can be revamped into different collections. The two grown-up fantasy stories in that collection will be in the new Bellhound collection. I'll re-publish the Enchanted Tree as a small children's story collection a little later. (Those who have bought it should still be able to download it at will from various ebook outlets -- they keep them in archive. It will also take a while to clear from the shelves of some of the smaller outlets. That's one of the reasons why I am waiting on republishing the main collection.)
AND I still have to revamp my dare goals, given all my great ideas and the pile of stories I need to get out and published.
Now, on to Hemingway, and why I don't think what some people call his "masterpiece" is really so hot.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
MicroFiction - Three Tiny Stories
Continuing our discussion of what constitutes a story...for Sample Sunday this week, I give you three microfiction stories -- two classics and one of my own. The classics are the shortest story ever written, by Ernest Hemingway, and a grand old joke. The one of my own is a rough draft that I wrote when I saw a call for microfiction on the theme of "spring break" - but I decided to publish it here rather than elsewhere, so we could talk about it.
*****
For sale....
by Ernest Hemingway
"For sale, baby shoes. Never used."
*****
Duck Walks Into a Bar
traditional joke
So this duck walks into a bar, and looks around, maybe a little confused, and finally waddles up to the bar, and jumps up on a stool.
"What can I get you?" says the bartender.
"Got any duck food?"
"No, we're a bar. We serve drinks. We don't carry duck food."
"Okay," says the duck, and he jumps down from the stool and waddles away.
The next day the duck comes back, waddles right up to the bar. The bartender gives him the evil eye, but the duck just jumps right up on stool.
"What can get you?" asks the bartender again.
"Got any duck food?" asks the duck... again.
"Look I told you, this is a bar. We don't serve duck food. We serve drinks."
"Okay," says the duck again, and he waddles off, as the bartender shakes his head at the bird brain.
The next day the duck is back. He waddles right up to the bar and hops on the stool.
"Got any duck food?" he asks once again.
"NO!" says the bartender. "I've told you twice, and I'm not telling you again. I'm getting sick of telling you this. We don't serve duck food, and if you come back here and ask for it one more time, I'm going to nail your little webbed feet to that stool, got it?"
"Um, okay," says the duck, and he waddles off, though this time he takes a cautious look over his shoulder.
The fourth day, the duck shows up a little later. When he enters, he takes a cautious look around, pauses, and then carefully waddles up to the bar. He jumps up on the stool, and he doesn't say anything.
"What can I get you?" asks the bartender, through gritted teeth.
The duck pauses. The bartender narrows his eyes and gives him the Clint Eastwood look. The duck swallows and opens his beak.
"Got any hammers?"
"Hammers?" says the bartender, nonplussed. "No, I don't have any hammers! This is a bar!"
"Oh," says the duck, looking greatly relieved. "Then, got any duck food?"
*****
You Kids Get Off My Lawn!
by Camille LaGuire
They came back every year at spring break. Every dang year. Same kids.
Norton lay in bed and tried his best to ignore them. They didn't damage anything any more. They just ran around and hooted and shrieked. And every now and then they broke into one of those college songs, with drunken off-key harmony.
He figured they were from the college downstate. They only came across his place, there down a bleak country road, because they'd taken a wrong turn on the way to that beach resort. There was no reason for a carload of kids to come by his house at all. No reason for them to stop, except for that danged old apple tree that he had pruned to spread out into a wide shelter where he could sit in the summer and contemplate.
They saw that tree and stopped to dance under it. Naked. Two boys, two girls, bouncing naked all over his yard.
He cut down that tree, but they still came back. Every year.
And the only thing they seemed to want to do was disturb his sleep. He lay there and covered his ears, but the caterwalling only got louder. The sound penetrated his head like a bullet. He pulled the blanket over his head. He wasn't going to go to the window and watch them dance around where the tree once was. He wasn't going to run out there. He wasn't going to shout. He wasn't going to wave that danged gun around like he had the first time. They were so high, they hadn't even noticed when it went off.
He never should have buried them there in the yard. That was the problem. Soon as spring break was over, and the resort was empty again, he'd dig those bodies up and move them to where they were headed in the first place. They could party at the beach for all eternity. Then maybe he'd get some sleep.
*****
Tomorrow I'll talk about what makes these into stories. I may split the discussion up into several posts. (The duck, in particular, is a little harder to parse, imho.)
Next Post in series: A sacreligious post about Hemingway.
I also think we should consider very short dramas -- TV ads -- in figuring out what makes an appealing story. There are lots of "story" ads out there, and they really do push the envelope on many different methods.
See you in the funny papers.
*****
For sale....
by Ernest Hemingway
"For sale, baby shoes. Never used."
*****
Duck Walks Into a Bar
traditional joke
So this duck walks into a bar, and looks around, maybe a little confused, and finally waddles up to the bar, and jumps up on a stool.
"What can I get you?" says the bartender.
"Got any duck food?"
"No, we're a bar. We serve drinks. We don't carry duck food."
"Okay," says the duck, and he jumps down from the stool and waddles away.
The next day the duck comes back, waddles right up to the bar. The bartender gives him the evil eye, but the duck just jumps right up on stool.
"What can get you?" asks the bartender again.
"Got any duck food?" asks the duck... again.
"Look I told you, this is a bar. We don't serve duck food. We serve drinks."
"Okay," says the duck again, and he waddles off, as the bartender shakes his head at the bird brain.
The next day the duck is back. He waddles right up to the bar and hops on the stool.
"Got any duck food?" he asks once again.
"NO!" says the bartender. "I've told you twice, and I'm not telling you again. I'm getting sick of telling you this. We don't serve duck food, and if you come back here and ask for it one more time, I'm going to nail your little webbed feet to that stool, got it?"
"Um, okay," says the duck, and he waddles off, though this time he takes a cautious look over his shoulder.
The fourth day, the duck shows up a little later. When he enters, he takes a cautious look around, pauses, and then carefully waddles up to the bar. He jumps up on the stool, and he doesn't say anything.
"What can I get you?" asks the bartender, through gritted teeth.
The duck pauses. The bartender narrows his eyes and gives him the Clint Eastwood look. The duck swallows and opens his beak.
"Got any hammers?"
"Hammers?" says the bartender, nonplussed. "No, I don't have any hammers! This is a bar!"
"Oh," says the duck, looking greatly relieved. "Then, got any duck food?"
*****
You Kids Get Off My Lawn!
by Camille LaGuire
They came back every year at spring break. Every dang year. Same kids.
Norton lay in bed and tried his best to ignore them. They didn't damage anything any more. They just ran around and hooted and shrieked. And every now and then they broke into one of those college songs, with drunken off-key harmony.
He figured they were from the college downstate. They only came across his place, there down a bleak country road, because they'd taken a wrong turn on the way to that beach resort. There was no reason for a carload of kids to come by his house at all. No reason for them to stop, except for that danged old apple tree that he had pruned to spread out into a wide shelter where he could sit in the summer and contemplate.
They saw that tree and stopped to dance under it. Naked. Two boys, two girls, bouncing naked all over his yard.
He cut down that tree, but they still came back. Every year.
And the only thing they seemed to want to do was disturb his sleep. He lay there and covered his ears, but the caterwalling only got louder. The sound penetrated his head like a bullet. He pulled the blanket over his head. He wasn't going to go to the window and watch them dance around where the tree once was. He wasn't going to run out there. He wasn't going to shout. He wasn't going to wave that danged gun around like he had the first time. They were so high, they hadn't even noticed when it went off.
He never should have buried them there in the yard. That was the problem. Soon as spring break was over, and the resort was empty again, he'd dig those bodies up and move them to where they were headed in the first place. They could party at the beach for all eternity. Then maybe he'd get some sleep.
*****
Tomorrow I'll talk about what makes these into stories. I may split the discussion up into several posts. (The duck, in particular, is a little harder to parse, imho.)
Next Post in series: A sacreligious post about Hemingway.
I also think we should consider very short dramas -- TV ads -- in figuring out what makes an appealing story. There are lots of "story" ads out there, and they really do push the envelope on many different methods.
See you in the funny papers.
The Essence of a Story - Micro and Flash Fiction, part 1
I wrote a couple days ago about short fiction, and in the comments Tim King mentioned his frustration with flash vignettes - and how story has to have some kind of change in it.
"Something must change" is a good working definition of the minimum it takes to make a story. (I have a slightly different definition, which I'll get to later.) Tim got the change from Holly Lisle. I learned it from an instructor in college. He was a poet, and so he often had to deal with the more literary end of fiction, and that was pretty much his definition of what makes a story a story. Something has to change.
Now, he was open to idea that what changes is that options are taken away -- for instance, a story about someone who never tried to do anything different, tries one day and fails, and goes back to the old routine. In such a story it might seem like nothing had changed, but in reality, everything can change in a story like that. A person who never tried to change has the possibility that some day she might. After she tries and fails, though, that rut she's in is no longer a rut or a routine -- it's a prison.
The problem with such stories is that they are super ordinary. Every creative writing class is full of them, because they are so easy to write. They are a terrible cliche. At best, this story line can work well as a subtext to something more interesting. Hard-boiled mysteries, and the grittier type of men's action are often about this -- and they make a better point of it than most literary short stories, because the people who don't change often go through extreme situations which should change them, so when it doesn't, you really believe they can't. A little literary story about someone who tries to change their routine in a small way and doesn't manage it doesn't feel like it's really about anything, because their routine was never really challenged.
Little things, of course, can be made big by detail. I rememember a story in college (don't remember who wrote it) from the 1930s about an uptight spinster who is driving along the highway in California, and she picks up a hitchhiker - a virile young man. The kid makes a pass at her, and when she responds with horror he backs off, embarrassed and very sorry. He points out a fruit truck ahead, and he says he knows that driver will give him a ride, so she can drop him off. Before she can start up again, the kid comes back and offers her a ripe melon, and then dashes away. If I remember right, the story ends with her driving away, sobbing.
This story was not about the fact that this woman can never change. As a matter of fact, I think she did change. No, she's not going to go gallivanting around with nubile young men. The change was revealed in the details of the story. We had a picture of a woman who was sure of herself. Who had control of her life, and who felt she was adventurous. She wasn't afraid to go driving alone across the country. The encounter with the young man showed her that she wasn't as adventurous as she thought. She had not tasted of the fruit of life, really. And furthermore it was now clear that her self-confidence and assurance wasn't because she was brave enough to taste life, but because she had shielded herself from life.
At the time I didn't really understand this story. Our instructor, Mr. Manion, was a grumpy guy, an ex-priest, a very interesting fellow - and not nearly as laid back and flexible as the poet instructor I had later. When Manion asked the students to comment on the story, and we all sat quietly and mumbled things, he finally just shouted at the whole class:
"IT'S ABOUT SEX!"
To which the twenty or so midwestern college freshmen all gasped in shock, rather like the spinster in the story.
After all these years, though, I think that the story wasn't about sex, it was about what happened in that classroom -- it was about being shocked about sex, even though we all knew what was going on in the story, and all thought of ourselves as sophisticated grown ups. This woman's life would not have been made better if she slept with every young farm hand who offered her a ripe melon. Her life would have been better if she -- someone who valued living a free and full life -- had been able to deal with the fact that a young man would make a pass at her.
Her tragedy was the revelation that she wasn't who she thought she was. At the end of the story we don't know if she will stop being adventurous or if she will suck it up and learn to deal with life for real. So in this case, the story wasn't about a change... yet. But it still worked as a story, because it raised a question -- what would happen if this "adventurous" woman got pushed outside her comfort zone? -- it answered that question.
A lot of very short fiction -- especially micro-fiction (under 500 words) is based on revelation. Which isn't exactly my definition of a story either. My definition is that a story creates tension and then releases it. It's the release that completes the story, and that release may be a number of things, though usually it's change or revelation.
I'll talk about that next.
But first, I haven't decided what to post for Sample Sunday. I might do a micro-fiction story. If so, it will be a twist story and not as deep as the spinster driving through the tawny hills of California, but it might make for some discussion points.
Next Post in series: Three Tiny Stories
"Something must change" is a good working definition of the minimum it takes to make a story. (I have a slightly different definition, which I'll get to later.) Tim got the change from Holly Lisle. I learned it from an instructor in college. He was a poet, and so he often had to deal with the more literary end of fiction, and that was pretty much his definition of what makes a story a story. Something has to change.
Now, he was open to idea that what changes is that options are taken away -- for instance, a story about someone who never tried to do anything different, tries one day and fails, and goes back to the old routine. In such a story it might seem like nothing had changed, but in reality, everything can change in a story like that. A person who never tried to change has the possibility that some day she might. After she tries and fails, though, that rut she's in is no longer a rut or a routine -- it's a prison.
The problem with such stories is that they are super ordinary. Every creative writing class is full of them, because they are so easy to write. They are a terrible cliche. At best, this story line can work well as a subtext to something more interesting. Hard-boiled mysteries, and the grittier type of men's action are often about this -- and they make a better point of it than most literary short stories, because the people who don't change often go through extreme situations which should change them, so when it doesn't, you really believe they can't. A little literary story about someone who tries to change their routine in a small way and doesn't manage it doesn't feel like it's really about anything, because their routine was never really challenged.
Little things, of course, can be made big by detail. I rememember a story in college (don't remember who wrote it) from the 1930s about an uptight spinster who is driving along the highway in California, and she picks up a hitchhiker - a virile young man. The kid makes a pass at her, and when she responds with horror he backs off, embarrassed and very sorry. He points out a fruit truck ahead, and he says he knows that driver will give him a ride, so she can drop him off. Before she can start up again, the kid comes back and offers her a ripe melon, and then dashes away. If I remember right, the story ends with her driving away, sobbing.
This story was not about the fact that this woman can never change. As a matter of fact, I think she did change. No, she's not going to go gallivanting around with nubile young men. The change was revealed in the details of the story. We had a picture of a woman who was sure of herself. Who had control of her life, and who felt she was adventurous. She wasn't afraid to go driving alone across the country. The encounter with the young man showed her that she wasn't as adventurous as she thought. She had not tasted of the fruit of life, really. And furthermore it was now clear that her self-confidence and assurance wasn't because she was brave enough to taste life, but because she had shielded herself from life.
At the time I didn't really understand this story. Our instructor, Mr. Manion, was a grumpy guy, an ex-priest, a very interesting fellow - and not nearly as laid back and flexible as the poet instructor I had later. When Manion asked the students to comment on the story, and we all sat quietly and mumbled things, he finally just shouted at the whole class:
"IT'S ABOUT SEX!"
To which the twenty or so midwestern college freshmen all gasped in shock, rather like the spinster in the story.
After all these years, though, I think that the story wasn't about sex, it was about what happened in that classroom -- it was about being shocked about sex, even though we all knew what was going on in the story, and all thought of ourselves as sophisticated grown ups. This woman's life would not have been made better if she slept with every young farm hand who offered her a ripe melon. Her life would have been better if she -- someone who valued living a free and full life -- had been able to deal with the fact that a young man would make a pass at her.
Her tragedy was the revelation that she wasn't who she thought she was. At the end of the story we don't know if she will stop being adventurous or if she will suck it up and learn to deal with life for real. So in this case, the story wasn't about a change... yet. But it still worked as a story, because it raised a question -- what would happen if this "adventurous" woman got pushed outside her comfort zone? -- it answered that question.
A lot of very short fiction -- especially micro-fiction (under 500 words) is based on revelation. Which isn't exactly my definition of a story either. My definition is that a story creates tension and then releases it. It's the release that completes the story, and that release may be a number of things, though usually it's change or revelation.
I'll talk about that next.
But first, I haven't decided what to post for Sample Sunday. I might do a micro-fiction story. If so, it will be a twist story and not as deep as the spinster driving through the tawny hills of California, but it might make for some discussion points.
Next Post in series: Three Tiny Stories
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Problem With Self-Publishing Short Fiction
I said I was going to talk more about short stories, and comment on some stuff brought up in the comments. Specifically what constitutes a story, especially when you start getting in the flash and micro-fiction areas. How do you do more than a vignette? Or are you stuck with only writing certain kinds of stories when you go really short?
I didn't write about that. I found myself wrestling with a bigger problem. A problem that a lot of indie writers will struggle with if they start writing more shorter works.
Covers.
It takes just as long to do a cover for a short work as a long one. Sometimes longer -- because with short fiction there is less to the concept, so you don't want to give away the story. But you also want them to be quick and cheap to produce. If it's going to be a 99 cent special and you plan to give it away sometimes too, and not do a print version, you can't spend more time on the cover than on writing the darned story.
And you want a consistent style. If you have a variety of kinds of books, and lengths, it's really great if the reader can tell the difference between the short stuff and the more substantial stuff with something other than price. (Especially with so many people pricing novels all over the place.)
I thought, hey, why not go with a kind of literary look -- short story readers lean toward literary, and university presses also tend to look for cheap and easy for their covers.
So I had this bright idea of using a word cloud of the words in the manuscript as an image. It was really cool and slick looking... for a text book. Not the message I wanted to give. Hmmmm.
I finally realized that "texture" backgrounds are really a good fall back. They are often made freely available by and for 3-D graphics artists, and they are also something to photograph for myself.
Plus, I may even use different specific textures for all the books in a similar series. Like this old book texture I found at Zen Textures, (which, admittedly, doesn't look so hot in thumbnail, but it works well enough). It might be fine to use the same image for other fantasy, with a different 'symbol' and title/text.
This is the cover for the fantasy short story collection I plan to publish this weekend. I'll probably play with contrast and things like that first, but I think I will get it where I want it pretty easily, and if I can re-use it for other short stories, that will be fine. (More about that book next week when it makes it's way through the publishing process.)
In the meantime, I also realized that I am going to have to come up with a bunch of images for Mick and Casey covers. I have four novelettes which I will be publishing. I want to keep a similar look to Have Gun, Will Play, but give the short works a different look (maybe another color than the yellow, and shift around the logo).
But I also have the screenplay to create a cover for. I've already decided on the screenplay layout, and I knew I could use the Mick and Casey logo to tie it to the series, while keeping it clear that it's a screenplay. So tonight I also did that cover. (The title is "Girl Gunslinger, the Screenplay Origins of the Mick and Casey Mysteries.")
So maybe tomorrow I'll get to talking about flash fiction. Hey, maybe I should write something this weekend just for the #samplesunday posting. I'll give it a try. What should I write on? March Madness? St. Patrick's Day? Snow that just won't melt?
I didn't write about that. I found myself wrestling with a bigger problem. A problem that a lot of indie writers will struggle with if they start writing more shorter works.
Covers.
It takes just as long to do a cover for a short work as a long one. Sometimes longer -- because with short fiction there is less to the concept, so you don't want to give away the story. But you also want them to be quick and cheap to produce. If it's going to be a 99 cent special and you plan to give it away sometimes too, and not do a print version, you can't spend more time on the cover than on writing the darned story.
And you want a consistent style. If you have a variety of kinds of books, and lengths, it's really great if the reader can tell the difference between the short stuff and the more substantial stuff with something other than price. (Especially with so many people pricing novels all over the place.)
I thought, hey, why not go with a kind of literary look -- short story readers lean toward literary, and university presses also tend to look for cheap and easy for their covers.
So I had this bright idea of using a word cloud of the words in the manuscript as an image. It was really cool and slick looking... for a text book. Not the message I wanted to give. Hmmmm.
I finally realized that "texture" backgrounds are really a good fall back. They are often made freely available by and for 3-D graphics artists, and they are also something to photograph for myself.Plus, I may even use different specific textures for all the books in a similar series. Like this old book texture I found at Zen Textures, (which, admittedly, doesn't look so hot in thumbnail, but it works well enough). It might be fine to use the same image for other fantasy, with a different 'symbol' and title/text.
This is the cover for the fantasy short story collection I plan to publish this weekend. I'll probably play with contrast and things like that first, but I think I will get it where I want it pretty easily, and if I can re-use it for other short stories, that will be fine. (More about that book next week when it makes it's way through the publishing process.)
In the meantime, I also realized that I am going to have to come up with a bunch of images for Mick and Casey covers. I have four novelettes which I will be publishing. I want to keep a similar look to Have Gun, Will Play, but give the short works a different look (maybe another color than the yellow, and shift around the logo).But I also have the screenplay to create a cover for. I've already decided on the screenplay layout, and I knew I could use the Mick and Casey logo to tie it to the series, while keeping it clear that it's a screenplay. So tonight I also did that cover. (The title is "Girl Gunslinger, the Screenplay Origins of the Mick and Casey Mysteries.")
So maybe tomorrow I'll get to talking about flash fiction. Hey, maybe I should write something this weekend just for the #samplesunday posting. I'll give it a try. What should I write on? March Madness? St. Patrick's Day? Snow that just won't melt?
This Is Why I Didn't Meet My Goal Tonight
Important things are happening in Wisconsin right now. Over 7000 people have streamed into the capital building and are occupying it. (I don't know how many intend to stay the whole night, but reports are the crowd is only getting bigger -- many more outside.)
This has been going on for nearly a month (that's right, a month). Tens of thousands most days. Over a hundred thousand on some weekends. But the national press is only covering the politicians, not the crowds. There could be a general strike tomorrow. Students are tweeting that they want to stage a walk out of school on Friday, nationwide. When the police go off duty, they turn around and join the protesters. And apparently a large contingent of tractors will converge on the city on Saturday, and that was planned before the surprise move by the Wisconsin senate this afternoon....
No matter where you stand on the issues, the story -- the big overriding drama -- is with those crowds. (Crowds that a judge described as the most amazingly polite, orderly, clean and respectful mob of peasants with torches he's ever seen. Well, okay, that's not an exact quote, but it was the gist. It could yet turn ugly... but it's been a month, and the crowd has bonded with the cops. They're negotiating what to do next as we speak.)
There are a million stories here: Real people, minor panics, rumors, squashing of rumors, secret missions, volunteerism, pizza, strategic moves and counter moves, arguments, negotiations. The protesters are chanting "This is what Democracy looks like," but it's also what life looks like, just distilled into a big boiler.
So I've been following it via the local press and Twitter. Here's the story of what happened today at the Wisconsin State Journal.
And that's why I didn't make my goal to night. (That and the fact that it was a work day at the day job, and I made crab cakes for dinner, and then things started happening in Wis....)
Tomorrow, more about short fiction.
This has been going on for nearly a month (that's right, a month). Tens of thousands most days. Over a hundred thousand on some weekends. But the national press is only covering the politicians, not the crowds. There could be a general strike tomorrow. Students are tweeting that they want to stage a walk out of school on Friday, nationwide. When the police go off duty, they turn around and join the protesters. And apparently a large contingent of tractors will converge on the city on Saturday, and that was planned before the surprise move by the Wisconsin senate this afternoon....
No matter where you stand on the issues, the story -- the big overriding drama -- is with those crowds. (Crowds that a judge described as the most amazingly polite, orderly, clean and respectful mob of peasants with torches he's ever seen. Well, okay, that's not an exact quote, but it was the gist. It could yet turn ugly... but it's been a month, and the crowd has bonded with the cops. They're negotiating what to do next as we speak.)
There are a million stories here: Real people, minor panics, rumors, squashing of rumors, secret missions, volunteerism, pizza, strategic moves and counter moves, arguments, negotiations. The protesters are chanting "This is what Democracy looks like," but it's also what life looks like, just distilled into a big boiler.
So I've been following it via the local press and Twitter. Here's the story of what happened today at the Wisconsin State Journal.
And that's why I didn't make my goal to night. (That and the fact that it was a work day at the day job, and I made crab cakes for dinner, and then things started happening in Wis....)
Tomorrow, more about short fiction.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Fired Up About Short Fiction
I still haven't had a lot of time to organize my thoughts about how I'm redirecting my ongoing writing dare. But I have enough of a messy direction to get moving.
My goal for this year is to publish something to ebook every month. I knew that I would be using a number of stories and scripts that I already had in my files. What I didn't know was how many Mick and Casey short stories I had which were really novelettes, or even novellas. I also didn't realize how many were finished, or nearly so.
The reason they were left undone or unpolished was mainly because there weren't many markets for that length -- they were too long for magazines, and too short for books. But they are great for 99 cent ebooks.
Today I happened to look at a couple of those trunk stories, and realized I have to get them out now. I feel a certain imperative about it. For one thing, they are great stories which have been waiting patiently for a long time. For another, I think shorter, cheaper works are a part of the wave of the future.
While I think there is a place in this brave new world for the 99 cent novel, as a reader, I don't think they're necessary. I really like the idea of shorter works as snack food. As appetizers. I want to write more flash fiction. I want to write more novellas -- like episodes of a TV show something that's good to read in a sitting.
And also something that gives me a chance to expand my skills and take my time on my novels. I don't have to worry about hurrying, or about publicizing the novels as much. What I'd really like to do is give the reader plenty of chances to get to know my work in short form.
The key, though, is to work toward writing short fiction with the appeal of a novel. You've got to write stories not experiments or clever bits of nothing. Short fiction used to be all about stories, but then the short fiction markets became more literary, and for the longest time even in genre, experiment seemed to win out over story. Well, you know, sometimes writing an experiment is good for your skills, and I don't rule out writing that kind of story once in a while, but the plan is not to do that any more than necessary.
The plan is to write good stories.
My goal for this year is to publish something to ebook every month. I knew that I would be using a number of stories and scripts that I already had in my files. What I didn't know was how many Mick and Casey short stories I had which were really novelettes, or even novellas. I also didn't realize how many were finished, or nearly so.
The reason they were left undone or unpolished was mainly because there weren't many markets for that length -- they were too long for magazines, and too short for books. But they are great for 99 cent ebooks.
Today I happened to look at a couple of those trunk stories, and realized I have to get them out now. I feel a certain imperative about it. For one thing, they are great stories which have been waiting patiently for a long time. For another, I think shorter, cheaper works are a part of the wave of the future.
While I think there is a place in this brave new world for the 99 cent novel, as a reader, I don't think they're necessary. I really like the idea of shorter works as snack food. As appetizers. I want to write more flash fiction. I want to write more novellas -- like episodes of a TV show something that's good to read in a sitting.
And also something that gives me a chance to expand my skills and take my time on my novels. I don't have to worry about hurrying, or about publicizing the novels as much. What I'd really like to do is give the reader plenty of chances to get to know my work in short form.
The key, though, is to work toward writing short fiction with the appeal of a novel. You've got to write stories not experiments or clever bits of nothing. Short fiction used to be all about stories, but then the short fiction markets became more literary, and for the longest time even in genre, experiment seemed to win out over story. Well, you know, sometimes writing an experiment is good for your skills, and I don't rule out writing that kind of story once in a while, but the plan is not to do that any more than necessary.
The plan is to write good stories.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler
(That's "Let the good times roll," for the French impaired among you.)
We will be heading down to Zingerman's for Mardi Gras. They are offering paczis for the first time -- and only on Fat Tuesday. Paczis (pronounced poonch-keys) are a kind of Polish jelly donut. I am not fond of fruit pastries, but they are offering some cream varieties, so I pre-ordered those.
So yes, much of my day will be taken up with travel to another town to get some donuts. (And some goat cheese and a pastrami sandwich.) You know, it's important.
I had a whole bunch of stuff I meant to get done today. I think the only one I actually accomplished was I installed Turbo Tax and let it update itself and grab information from last year. (This is why I like Turbo Tax -- it fills in everything repetitive for me. I only need to check it for accuracy.)
I did write some on The Man Who Did Too Much. (And I think I have the right energy for the revamping of a key scene. It allows me to restore some other scenes to locations where they work best.) This was not on my to do list, but I'll take it.
One of the things I intended to do today was reset my Dare Goals. I have changed a few working methods, and made some subtle changes in my overall goals. But I haven't figured out how that all works in both my day to day working and in how I update the blog here. I think I'm going to use that counter in the sidebar for the work-in-progress only. I am doing multiple projects, and for the past month or so I was trying to count anything I worked on, but that's just too much math. I end up not updating it at all. The whole point of a "novel dare" is to track things to keep yourself honest, and it's not good if tracking things is too much work.
So while I'm going to track the word count per day, I'm not going to try to total it up on anything but the novel itself (and then I can look in the Word word count for that). If I do that, I also don't have to worry about anti-words. (You know, editing.)
But I haven't had a chance to think about the logistics of that yet. I've got a million ideas in my head, and they all want to come out at once. And I'm still recovering from the last two weeks. I want to give you some movie reviews and tell you some stuff about Ellery Queen too. I'll get to it all eventually.
We will be heading down to Zingerman's for Mardi Gras. They are offering paczis for the first time -- and only on Fat Tuesday. Paczis (pronounced poonch-keys) are a kind of Polish jelly donut. I am not fond of fruit pastries, but they are offering some cream varieties, so I pre-ordered those.
So yes, much of my day will be taken up with travel to another town to get some donuts. (And some goat cheese and a pastrami sandwich.) You know, it's important.
I had a whole bunch of stuff I meant to get done today. I think the only one I actually accomplished was I installed Turbo Tax and let it update itself and grab information from last year. (This is why I like Turbo Tax -- it fills in everything repetitive for me. I only need to check it for accuracy.)
I did write some on The Man Who Did Too Much. (And I think I have the right energy for the revamping of a key scene. It allows me to restore some other scenes to locations where they work best.) This was not on my to do list, but I'll take it.
One of the things I intended to do today was reset my Dare Goals. I have changed a few working methods, and made some subtle changes in my overall goals. But I haven't figured out how that all works in both my day to day working and in how I update the blog here. I think I'm going to use that counter in the sidebar for the work-in-progress only. I am doing multiple projects, and for the past month or so I was trying to count anything I worked on, but that's just too much math. I end up not updating it at all. The whole point of a "novel dare" is to track things to keep yourself honest, and it's not good if tracking things is too much work.
So while I'm going to track the word count per day, I'm not going to try to total it up on anything but the novel itself (and then I can look in the Word word count for that). If I do that, I also don't have to worry about anti-words. (You know, editing.)
But I haven't had a chance to think about the logistics of that yet. I've got a million ideas in my head, and they all want to come out at once. And I'm still recovering from the last two weeks. I want to give you some movie reviews and tell you some stuff about Ellery Queen too. I'll get to it all eventually.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Story Notes - Still Working on That Autonomous Moral Maturity
Yesterday's excerpt was from The Wife of Freedom, a book I finally have decided to call a "melodrama."
When I first finished writing this book, I realized that I had written something different. I didn't know what it was. It's not historical, because it doesn't take place in real history -- just a place that's kind of like the American Revolutionary war. It's not fantasy, because there is no magic. It's not a romance because it's about an unfaithful wife, and the real love story involves people who are apart for almost the entire book. Women's fiction? Not literary enough.
I wrote this book as an experiment, at a time when I needed to get away from pressure and just write. I remembered how I had done something similar for The Adventure of Anna the Great, and I started thinking about those elements I had chosen not to use in that book - the romancy, pot-boiler aspects of the swashbuckler formula.
As I thought about those tropes and archetypes, something clicked. I suddenly had this image of a world. It wasn't the real world, but it wasn't a fantasy either. It was like... a stage. It was history not as it happened but as it appeared in folklore and on TV shows like Daniel Boone and in pot-boiler novels and in plays. Especially as it appeared in old melodrama plays: a sketchy backdrop, the surrounding society and politics made into symbol, and all the attention could stay focused -- as it is in a play -- on the drama of the characters.
Melodramas were originally defined as stories about ordinary people. (High drama is about kings and gods, low comedy is about fools and crooks.) I wasn't thinking about the technical definition of "melodrama" when I wrote it, of course, but in retrospect, what is the folklore and mythology of American history but the glorification of ordinary people?
And that's why I think the most interesting aspect of this story (at least to me) is a subtle thread, half hidden. It's in the character of Jackie the Freedom -- Mary's husband.
You don't see much of him in yesterday's excerpt, and in fact, he stays mostly in the background for the whole story, and yet I feel he is the core of the story. He's... the muse. I swear, he was the one who told me this story. It isn't told in his voice, and couldn't be, but he is the one who told it to me. He's the anarchist who understands what all this freedom and rebellion mean -- both politically and personally. And yes, though he seems oblivious, he is the one who understands Mary.
Jackie describes Mary as a kind of freedom unto herself, a freedom that goes through steel bars like water. A freedom, he tells his compatriots, that will save our necks.
But for Mary, that freedom feels destructive, as she finds herself drawn into betraying everyone around her. She's not an intellectual. She can't justify it. Inside she's just the wild orphan she once was, made shy and proper after being raised by puritans, but the rules never touched her inside. Later in the story she says it was like she'd been folded neatly and locked in a box. And it wasn't until her lover Henry came along and undid the catch that Mary popped out, "all on springs," and all hell broke loose.
But that's only the beginning of her story.
The Wife of Freedom is on sale at Smashwords for half price this week -- $1.49. The coupon code is RAE50, which is also on the purchase page so you won't miss it. (Note: ebook only.)
(You can also find The Wife of Freedom at the regular price of $2.99 at Amazon's Kindle Store, Kindle UK Store, and Barnes and Noble's Nookstore. Look for it at Apple's iBookstore, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, too.)
When I first finished writing this book, I realized that I had written something different. I didn't know what it was. It's not historical, because it doesn't take place in real history -- just a place that's kind of like the American Revolutionary war. It's not fantasy, because there is no magic. It's not a romance because it's about an unfaithful wife, and the real love story involves people who are apart for almost the entire book. Women's fiction? Not literary enough.
I wrote this book as an experiment, at a time when I needed to get away from pressure and just write. I remembered how I had done something similar for The Adventure of Anna the Great, and I started thinking about those elements I had chosen not to use in that book - the romancy, pot-boiler aspects of the swashbuckler formula.
As I thought about those tropes and archetypes, something clicked. I suddenly had this image of a world. It wasn't the real world, but it wasn't a fantasy either. It was like... a stage. It was history not as it happened but as it appeared in folklore and on TV shows like Daniel Boone and in pot-boiler novels and in plays. Especially as it appeared in old melodrama plays: a sketchy backdrop, the surrounding society and politics made into symbol, and all the attention could stay focused -- as it is in a play -- on the drama of the characters.
Melodramas were originally defined as stories about ordinary people. (High drama is about kings and gods, low comedy is about fools and crooks.) I wasn't thinking about the technical definition of "melodrama" when I wrote it, of course, but in retrospect, what is the folklore and mythology of American history but the glorification of ordinary people?
And that's why I think the most interesting aspect of this story (at least to me) is a subtle thread, half hidden. It's in the character of Jackie the Freedom -- Mary's husband.
You don't see much of him in yesterday's excerpt, and in fact, he stays mostly in the background for the whole story, and yet I feel he is the core of the story. He's... the muse. I swear, he was the one who told me this story. It isn't told in his voice, and couldn't be, but he is the one who told it to me. He's the anarchist who understands what all this freedom and rebellion mean -- both politically and personally. And yes, though he seems oblivious, he is the one who understands Mary.
Jackie describes Mary as a kind of freedom unto herself, a freedom that goes through steel bars like water. A freedom, he tells his compatriots, that will save our necks.
But for Mary, that freedom feels destructive, as she finds herself drawn into betraying everyone around her. She's not an intellectual. She can't justify it. Inside she's just the wild orphan she once was, made shy and proper after being raised by puritans, but the rules never touched her inside. Later in the story she says it was like she'd been folded neatly and locked in a box. And it wasn't until her lover Henry came along and undid the catch that Mary popped out, "all on springs," and all hell broke loose.
But that's only the beginning of her story.
The Wife of Freedom is on sale at Smashwords for half price this week -- $1.49. The coupon code is RAE50, which is also on the purchase page so you won't miss it. (Note: ebook only.)
(You can also find The Wife of Freedom at the regular price of $2.99 at Amazon's Kindle Store, Kindle UK Store, and Barnes and Noble's Nookstore. Look for it at Apple's iBookstore, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, too.)
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wife Of Freedom - an Excerpt
This week's Sample Sunday excerpt is from The Wife of Freedom, a melodrama about a woman who is what she is, no matter how much she tries not to be.
Mary Alwyn is a wild soul, a free spirit who has tried very very hard to fit in with the staid and puritanical society around her (in a world something like America just before the revolution). She's married to an ardent revolutionary -- Jackie the Freedom, a blacksmith who writes incendiary pamphlets and gets himself into trouble a lot -- but his attention is on the revolution and Mary is adrift.
This excerpt from Chapter 3 begins the morning after she met Henry Pembroke, a handsome and elegant officer in the royal army. A troop of soldiers has arrived at Mary's door, seeking to arrest her husband. The husband has long slipped away, and Mary goes to face the soldiers.
* * * * *
From Chapter 3 of The Wife of Freedom
by Camille LaGuire
It was always a debate as to whether to let them in, or to stand on her rights and make them knock the door down. Either way, she could delay them while Jackie played his game of strutting around in public, but never being caught until the thing blew over...or until he was caught. A flogging didn’t matter, if it got attention. His wife’s distress was not even noticeable to him.
But as for the door, she’d better open it, because Jackie’d never get around to fixing a broken one. Mary pulled it open, looking harried, as if interrupted in her sewing. It was Major Pembroke, standing with that nobleman’s ease, his head cocked in deference and concern. Prettier in the daylight, yet.
“Major Pembroke,” she said in a little bit of a gasp.
“Marm,” he said, removing his hat. “Is your husband at home?”
“No, he’s at the printer’s.”
“We’ve just come from there, marm. He isn’t there. Nor is there anyone else. Not even the press itself.”
“Oh, dear. They must have moved it again, then.”
“Do you know where they would have moved it to?”
“Won’t you come in?”
His hesitation was almost invisible.
“Thank you, marm,” and he stepped inside, shutting the door in the faces of the two soldiers with him.
And all the time it was going through Mary’s head: if you were going to be unfaithful, did it really matter if you did it instantly? How many meetings was appropriate before you actually succumbed? Wasn’t it always inappropriate? Shades of her childhood came back to her, when Mrs. Cress would marvel at how “she didn’t even hesitate!” whenever Mary had jumped into a mud puddle. And Mary could never understand how thinking about it first could make a crime less serious.
“Are you sure your husband is not at home?”
“Are you asking to find out where he is, or for more personal reasons?”
His mouth widened in a pleased smile. A pleasing smile. She took a deep breath as he leaned in.
“And what kind of personal reasons would you mean, marm?”
She let the breath out and thought what an idiot she was. And that if she was too forward, she’d drive him away. But if he could be driven away with honesty, what good was he? She didn’t know how to be coy, even if he did.
“Perhaps you’d better have them search,” she said, snapping her mouth shut and stepping back.
He smiled and opened the door. The soldiers trundled in, glancing sidelong at her.
“Make sure he’s not hiding here somewhere,” he told them. They tromped through the house. At least she didn’t have to worry about that. Jackie claimed to have the Freedom to Dream in his head, and she and the major were standing on top of the cache of arms. The major stood very close to her, angled a bit away so as to seem more decent. He seemed comfortable to let the silence draw out for a bit. She stood primly, with her hands clasped before her, eyes cast down. She noticed that the major had very fine boots. And a fine pair of legs going into them. What you could see of her own boots were scuffed. She slipped a foot back, more out of sight and shifted her weight, tilting her head.
Then he spoke, his face much closer to her ear than she expected. Not looking at her boots at all.
“Marm, tell me where to have them search next.”
“What?” The proximity and the words startled her and she stepped back to regain her balance. She looked at him, and his face showed a sly earnestness.
“Tell me where to send them to search next,” he insisted.
And suddenly the logic flooded back into her that they were there to haul Jackie away and beat him. She widened her eyes and stared at him, and her face turned hot with a deep flush.
“I cannot tell you that,” she said.
He looked disconcerted, and then leaned in closer and lowered his voice.
“I mean, where should they search that would occupy them for some time?”
“I don’t know,” she said, waving her hands in the air as the soldiers returned. “You’ve had your search, now get out.”
The soldiers grinned at one another, as she waved them toward the door, and they filed out. The major paused and took her hand, bowing gently over it.
“Marm, I apologize,” he said. “I did not wish to cause you distress.”
He kissed just the tips of her fingers, which stopped her nervous gesture to push him out.
“And I regret any misunderstandings,” he added, with an odd emphasis. He carefully turned her hand over and very slowly kissed the palm of her hand, so slowly, his breath tickled her wrist.
Then with a bow, he left.
* * *
Mary spent the whole day thinking about him. In the evening Jackie came home excited and a little drunk. He gave her a big happy kiss, and a clutch to her backside, but between the drink and the fact that he hadn’t slept the night before, he was out before she could get him undressed.
“Oh, Jackie,” she said. She took two steps back and looked at him. He was always doing. Always busy. Always two steps ahead of himself. And as a result he never really was where he was. He was never there. And Mary, no matter how she tried, could never seem to be any place but where she was now. Could never really keep her mind on the future. A big puddle of mud and her shoes pinched, and that’s as far as her mind naturally went.
“I’ll be making a mistake,” she said aloud. She reached out and took hold of his face, which as rough and in need of a shave. Two days in need of it. He stirred, and she held her breath, but he didn’t awaken. “Perhaps I wouldn’t make the mistake if you were here,” she whispered.
He snorted and then began to softly snore. She pulled back and brushed her hand over his face impatiently, but she couldn’t tell if it was disgust or relief. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. It wasn’t his mistake, it was hers. The Freedom to Fall, she thought. That was the first Freedom Paper he’d written. You make your own mistakes. You don’t need any help from any lords or masters.
She turned away and took a little extra time about washing herself, and thought about the here and now. She may have had trouble getting her mind on the future, but she realized she didn’t have any trouble at all getting away from the here. Her mind wandered freely enough just now. And where it went was to him. Major Pembroke.
She crawled into bed, her back to her snoring husband, and slept alone with her dreams.
The next day, Jackie was gone before daybreak, along with his papers. When the major returned, she didn’t misunderstand, and she didn’t spend the morning alone.
Tomorrow, I'll post some notes on how and why this story came about in my Story Notes: The Wife of Freedom.
If you'd like to read more of The Wife of Freedom, you're in luck! This week Smashwords is having a sale for "Read an eBook Week." This ebook and several others of mine are on sale for half price (others for free). The sale lasts from March 6-12, 2011. (It should start around midnight tonight, but I'm not sure which time zone.) Buy The Wife of Freedom, or heck out my whole book list at my profile page on Smashwords.
You can also find The Wife of Freedom at the regular price of $3.95 at Amazon's Kindle Store, Kindle UK Store, and Barnes and Noble's Nookstore. Look for it at Apple's iBookstore, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, too.
Mary Alwyn is a wild soul, a free spirit who has tried very very hard to fit in with the staid and puritanical society around her (in a world something like America just before the revolution). She's married to an ardent revolutionary -- Jackie the Freedom, a blacksmith who writes incendiary pamphlets and gets himself into trouble a lot -- but his attention is on the revolution and Mary is adrift.
This excerpt from Chapter 3 begins the morning after she met Henry Pembroke, a handsome and elegant officer in the royal army. A troop of soldiers has arrived at Mary's door, seeking to arrest her husband. The husband has long slipped away, and Mary goes to face the soldiers.
* * * * *
by Camille LaGuire
It was always a debate as to whether to let them in, or to stand on her rights and make them knock the door down. Either way, she could delay them while Jackie played his game of strutting around in public, but never being caught until the thing blew over...or until he was caught. A flogging didn’t matter, if it got attention. His wife’s distress was not even noticeable to him.
But as for the door, she’d better open it, because Jackie’d never get around to fixing a broken one. Mary pulled it open, looking harried, as if interrupted in her sewing. It was Major Pembroke, standing with that nobleman’s ease, his head cocked in deference and concern. Prettier in the daylight, yet.
“Major Pembroke,” she said in a little bit of a gasp.
“Marm,” he said, removing his hat. “Is your husband at home?”
“No, he’s at the printer’s.”
“We’ve just come from there, marm. He isn’t there. Nor is there anyone else. Not even the press itself.”
“Oh, dear. They must have moved it again, then.”
“Do you know where they would have moved it to?”
“Won’t you come in?”
His hesitation was almost invisible.
“Thank you, marm,” and he stepped inside, shutting the door in the faces of the two soldiers with him.
And all the time it was going through Mary’s head: if you were going to be unfaithful, did it really matter if you did it instantly? How many meetings was appropriate before you actually succumbed? Wasn’t it always inappropriate? Shades of her childhood came back to her, when Mrs. Cress would marvel at how “she didn’t even hesitate!” whenever Mary had jumped into a mud puddle. And Mary could never understand how thinking about it first could make a crime less serious.
“Are you sure your husband is not at home?”
“Are you asking to find out where he is, or for more personal reasons?”
His mouth widened in a pleased smile. A pleasing smile. She took a deep breath as he leaned in.
“And what kind of personal reasons would you mean, marm?”
She let the breath out and thought what an idiot she was. And that if she was too forward, she’d drive him away. But if he could be driven away with honesty, what good was he? She didn’t know how to be coy, even if he did.
“Perhaps you’d better have them search,” she said, snapping her mouth shut and stepping back.
He smiled and opened the door. The soldiers trundled in, glancing sidelong at her.
“Make sure he’s not hiding here somewhere,” he told them. They tromped through the house. At least she didn’t have to worry about that. Jackie claimed to have the Freedom to Dream in his head, and she and the major were standing on top of the cache of arms. The major stood very close to her, angled a bit away so as to seem more decent. He seemed comfortable to let the silence draw out for a bit. She stood primly, with her hands clasped before her, eyes cast down. She noticed that the major had very fine boots. And a fine pair of legs going into them. What you could see of her own boots were scuffed. She slipped a foot back, more out of sight and shifted her weight, tilting her head.
Then he spoke, his face much closer to her ear than she expected. Not looking at her boots at all.
“Marm, tell me where to have them search next.”
“What?” The proximity and the words startled her and she stepped back to regain her balance. She looked at him, and his face showed a sly earnestness.
“Tell me where to send them to search next,” he insisted.
And suddenly the logic flooded back into her that they were there to haul Jackie away and beat him. She widened her eyes and stared at him, and her face turned hot with a deep flush.
“I cannot tell you that,” she said.
He looked disconcerted, and then leaned in closer and lowered his voice.
“I mean, where should they search that would occupy them for some time?”
“I don’t know,” she said, waving her hands in the air as the soldiers returned. “You’ve had your search, now get out.”
The soldiers grinned at one another, as she waved them toward the door, and they filed out. The major paused and took her hand, bowing gently over it.
“Marm, I apologize,” he said. “I did not wish to cause you distress.”
He kissed just the tips of her fingers, which stopped her nervous gesture to push him out.
“And I regret any misunderstandings,” he added, with an odd emphasis. He carefully turned her hand over and very slowly kissed the palm of her hand, so slowly, his breath tickled her wrist.
Then with a bow, he left.
* * *
Mary spent the whole day thinking about him. In the evening Jackie came home excited and a little drunk. He gave her a big happy kiss, and a clutch to her backside, but between the drink and the fact that he hadn’t slept the night before, he was out before she could get him undressed.
“Oh, Jackie,” she said. She took two steps back and looked at him. He was always doing. Always busy. Always two steps ahead of himself. And as a result he never really was where he was. He was never there. And Mary, no matter how she tried, could never seem to be any place but where she was now. Could never really keep her mind on the future. A big puddle of mud and her shoes pinched, and that’s as far as her mind naturally went.
“I’ll be making a mistake,” she said aloud. She reached out and took hold of his face, which as rough and in need of a shave. Two days in need of it. He stirred, and she held her breath, but he didn’t awaken. “Perhaps I wouldn’t make the mistake if you were here,” she whispered.
He snorted and then began to softly snore. She pulled back and brushed her hand over his face impatiently, but she couldn’t tell if it was disgust or relief. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. It wasn’t his mistake, it was hers. The Freedom to Fall, she thought. That was the first Freedom Paper he’d written. You make your own mistakes. You don’t need any help from any lords or masters.
She turned away and took a little extra time about washing herself, and thought about the here and now. She may have had trouble getting her mind on the future, but she realized she didn’t have any trouble at all getting away from the here. Her mind wandered freely enough just now. And where it went was to him. Major Pembroke.
She crawled into bed, her back to her snoring husband, and slept alone with her dreams.
The next day, Jackie was gone before daybreak, along with his papers. When the major returned, she didn’t misunderstand, and she didn’t spend the morning alone.
* * * * *
Tomorrow, I'll post some notes on how and why this story came about in my Story Notes: The Wife of Freedom.
If you'd like to read more of The Wife of Freedom, you're in luck! This week Smashwords is having a sale for "Read an eBook Week." This ebook and several others of mine are on sale for half price (others for free). The sale lasts from March 6-12, 2011. (It should start around midnight tonight, but I'm not sure which time zone.) Buy The Wife of Freedom, or heck out my whole book list at my profile page on Smashwords.
You can also find The Wife of Freedom at the regular price of $3.95 at Amazon's Kindle Store, Kindle UK Store, and Barnes and Noble's Nookstore. Look for it at Apple's iBookstore, Sony, Kobo and Diesel, too.
End of Week Update - Miscellaneous Progress
This week was a bear, but I got through it. I got not only some decent brainstorming in, I also have a bunch of story ideas lined up. None that quite excite me enough, though.
I also did some good work on a few other projects. (And I came up with some really good ideas for Old Paint while writing up yesterday's sample posts. I had to remove the stuff I decided to use from the examples!)
The interesting thing that happened to me this week, though, may have been a side effect of the brainstorming. Once my head got outside of its box, I saw a few things about my career and direction for the next couple of years. One thing I realized was that the genre for Wife of Freedom is "melodrama," and so I should just give up and call it that.
The other thing I realized was that I had made a mistake in how I collected the stories for The Enchanted Tree. I made it a home for all of my published fantasy fiction, but the truth is, that's too disparate a group of stories. And even though thematically the two grown up fantasy stories fit with the rest, I really should not have included them. I should have focussed that collection more closely and saved those two stories for another collection....
Like the next collection I've been getting ready to publish next month. That one was really troublesome because, again, the stories fit together in a thematic way, but two stories are modern times with a fantasy element thrown in, and the other is a space opera, but kind of a low key TV show type space opera. And the two fantasy stories have very different tones. (One funny, the other darker.)
So I decided to reconfigure it all. In preparation for that, I have unpublished The Enchanted Tree collection -- to be republished with only the stories suitable for children later on. The two end stories ("Like the Wind" and "Away He Run") which are both modern setting stories with a magic element, can go with the new collection. And the space opera gets set aside until I write another story or two to go with it.
I'm doing this because I have realized that in this shift to e-publishing, minor works are very important to a writer. They don't take a lot of effort, so you can charge low prices and even give them away. They also don't take a lot of time to read, and can be a low-commitment way for readers to discover you.
Short works are, in essence, a major part of this new era of pulp. You could say that a short work is "cheap" to produce the way that pulp magazines were cheap. In those days, the publisher was the one incurring the cost, and it was the printing and shipping that was made cheap. Now days the writer is the "manufacturer" who has to find a way to supply inexpensive items -- and the only way producing a work is "cheap" for the author is if it doesn't take long.
I haven't decided for sure what I'm doing for Sample Sunday this week, but I think I might post an excerpt from my melodrama, and then in the story notes, explain why I wrote it, and what makes it a melodrama.
I also did some good work on a few other projects. (And I came up with some really good ideas for Old Paint while writing up yesterday's sample posts. I had to remove the stuff I decided to use from the examples!)
The interesting thing that happened to me this week, though, may have been a side effect of the brainstorming. Once my head got outside of its box, I saw a few things about my career and direction for the next couple of years. One thing I realized was that the genre for Wife of Freedom is "melodrama," and so I should just give up and call it that.
The other thing I realized was that I had made a mistake in how I collected the stories for The Enchanted Tree. I made it a home for all of my published fantasy fiction, but the truth is, that's too disparate a group of stories. And even though thematically the two grown up fantasy stories fit with the rest, I really should not have included them. I should have focussed that collection more closely and saved those two stories for another collection....
Like the next collection I've been getting ready to publish next month. That one was really troublesome because, again, the stories fit together in a thematic way, but two stories are modern times with a fantasy element thrown in, and the other is a space opera, but kind of a low key TV show type space opera. And the two fantasy stories have very different tones. (One funny, the other darker.)
So I decided to reconfigure it all. In preparation for that, I have unpublished The Enchanted Tree collection -- to be republished with only the stories suitable for children later on. The two end stories ("Like the Wind" and "Away He Run") which are both modern setting stories with a magic element, can go with the new collection. And the space opera gets set aside until I write another story or two to go with it.
I'm doing this because I have realized that in this shift to e-publishing, minor works are very important to a writer. They don't take a lot of effort, so you can charge low prices and even give them away. They also don't take a lot of time to read, and can be a low-commitment way for readers to discover you.
Short works are, in essence, a major part of this new era of pulp. You could say that a short work is "cheap" to produce the way that pulp magazines were cheap. In those days, the publisher was the one incurring the cost, and it was the printing and shipping that was made cheap. Now days the writer is the "manufacturer" who has to find a way to supply inexpensive items -- and the only way producing a work is "cheap" for the author is if it doesn't take long.
I haven't decided for sure what I'm doing for Sample Sunday this week, but I think I might post an excerpt from my melodrama, and then in the story notes, explain why I wrote it, and what makes it a melodrama.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Smashwords Sale - and Ellery Queen is Out on DVD!
Two announcements for the day:
One is that Smashwords having a site-wide sale for "Read an eBook Week" on books by every author who has signed up. The sale will start Sunday, March 6, and go through the 12th. My books will either be half-price or free. You can buy them by simply going to the site and putting the book in your cart, and the automated coupon should kick in. (You should not have to enter a code or anything.)
This is a great way to try out ebooks. You can read them online, or on your favorite ereader in one of the many formats. And the great thing about Smashwords is that you have access to ALL formats all the time. If you change readers a year from now, you can download a different copy.
You can find my books listed on my Smashwords Profile.
The other announcement has me hopping up and down with excitement.... They have FINALLY released the old Ellery Queen TV Show on DVD! The ones with Jim Hutton and David Wayne. Do you remember those? (Are you to young? Am I dating myself?)
This series was developed and largely written by Levinson and Link, the guys who created Columbo, and Mannix and Murder, She Wrote. EQ was an old fashioned whodunnit series, and very stylishly done, but the puzzles were tough, and the show only lasted for one season. (And was partly responsible for Levinson and Link making the Murder, She Wrote puzzles much simpler.)
I always thought it was cool that Jim Hutton's son was the one to bring an equally stylish version of Nero Wolfe to TV later on. (And I notice that Amazon indicates that many people are buying both series together.)
I have mine ordered and I even paid extra for it to arrive tomorrow!
One is that Smashwords having a site-wide sale for "Read an eBook Week" on books by every author who has signed up. The sale will start Sunday, March 6, and go through the 12th. My books will either be half-price or free. You can buy them by simply going to the site and putting the book in your cart, and the automated coupon should kick in. (You should not have to enter a code or anything.)
This is a great way to try out ebooks. You can read them online, or on your favorite ereader in one of the many formats. And the great thing about Smashwords is that you have access to ALL formats all the time. If you change readers a year from now, you can download a different copy.
You can find my books listed on my Smashwords Profile.
The other announcement has me hopping up and down with excitement.... They have FINALLY released the old Ellery Queen TV Show on DVD! The ones with Jim Hutton and David Wayne. Do you remember those? (Are you to young? Am I dating myself?)
This series was developed and largely written by Levinson and Link, the guys who created Columbo, and Mannix and Murder, She Wrote. EQ was an old fashioned whodunnit series, and very stylishly done, but the puzzles were tough, and the show only lasted for one season. (And was partly responsible for Levinson and Link making the Murder, She Wrote puzzles much simpler.)
I always thought it was cool that Jim Hutton's son was the one to bring an equally stylish version of Nero Wolfe to TV later on. (And I notice that Amazon indicates that many people are buying both series together.)
I have mine ordered and I even paid extra for it to arrive tomorrow!
The Magic of 100 - A Practical Guide
In yesterday's post - The Magic of 100 - I talked about pushing the envelope in brainstorming way beyond normal by giving yourself a very high goal -- like 100 ideas. Or 1000. In the comments, Mary suggested I give examples of the what that list of ideas might look like.
Oh right! Everyone has a different definition of "idea." Do I mean big ideas or small ones or what? I actually mean any of the above. The definition has to be flexible for this exercise. So here is a more practical description of how I do this exercise. (Feel free to adapt it at will.)
First, you define what you're going for. What problem are you trying to solve? This method doesn't just have to be about writing after all. It can be ways to market a book, or ideas for your sister's birthday party, or 101 uses for a kumquat. I admit, I don't usually use this method for solving problems in a well developed story. A developed story is already full of ideas. A method like this is like pulling out a Howitzer to swat a fly. But sometimes at least starting this process will help a smaller problem.
For instance: I am 90 percent of the way to solving my MacGuffin problem, but if I were still stuck, here's how I would use the Magic of 100 to deal with this: Define the problem. I have to have a MacGuffin that affects three different characters in three different ways -- each not aware of the others. That's complicated.
So I might define three separate problems: What would Character A want? What items could Character B possess and not know the value (given that B is a smart cookie)? What sort of things would Character C keep silent about?
And with normal thinking I'd get myself lost in that: "A wants money, but B would know that's important so it can't be money, so maybe it's a secret, but how would B have that in his possession in a way that A could be seeking to get it from him without tipping his hand...?" and pretty soon I'd be lost in ideas.
With the brainstorming method you never do "it can't be that." You throw in everything and keep going. So I would start by just seeing how far I could go with just the first problem -- what does Character A want?
You'll notice that even though I was supposedly working on just the first problem, I was already getting into the second. Because I defined the questions up front, they are influencing what I do. And frankly, if I ran out of one line of thought, I could move on to others -- a deed, diamonds, his mother's diamond ring with sentimental value....
The other thing you might notice is that some of the items are objects, and some are situations. Some are even plot twists. This is another value of high numbers -- you have the freedom to go off on tangents. You could start listing ideas as to which characters are associated with the tankard or the piano, and that could give you more ideas because you suddenly realize that the thing A wants is the trust of the bartender! The bartender knows where the money (or key or map or suitcase) is and the bartender will not talk to A, so A wants to use B to get at that info.
Which leads me to another value of high numbers -- extra ideas. Let's say the trust of the bartender doesn't work for my story, but the idea is cool. I just got myself another story idea for free.
And that's really where this method shines -- new ideas. When your just starting a project, this really can open up your possibilities. You still have to define your problem up front, though. Say you want to write a flash story or a short story. You have a theme from a contest or just an idea, say from a previous brainstorming session - like the bartender idea. Or you've decided to play with new approaches to a cliche - say The Butler Did It.
Then you start listing whatever comes to mind.
And when you get stuck on the ideas about the butlers trying to kill each other, you can go back to listing pranks butlers can play on each other, and then motives for pranks. You are free to go off on tangents as long as they seem interesting. (As a matter of fact you should go off on tangents - that's what this method is all about.)
I usually find that as I work through a list like this, my items get longer.
Or short cut ideas which refer back to an earlier idea:
Sometimes a story will take off before you get to 100, and that's great, although you can still use the brainstorming to come up with more details for the developing story, which may no longer involve a butler at all, but may involve turkeys, tigers or turtles which play pranks on beautiful employers.
The point of the 100 is to get outside of the box.
What if your style of ideas makes 100 too easy to get to? What if, say, you find yourself listing "turtles, turkeys, tigers, kumquats, ostriches" each as separate items? Wouldn't that be cheating?
Nope, you're not cheating. That's just how your mind works. Keep working that way. Just raise the number of your goal. You get to go for 200 or 500 or 1000. (And always keep checking back with your purpose, or at least with earlier list items to bring yourself back into focus if you find yourself just listing pointless words.)
Oh right! Everyone has a different definition of "idea." Do I mean big ideas or small ones or what? I actually mean any of the above. The definition has to be flexible for this exercise. So here is a more practical description of how I do this exercise. (Feel free to adapt it at will.)
First, you define what you're going for. What problem are you trying to solve? This method doesn't just have to be about writing after all. It can be ways to market a book, or ideas for your sister's birthday party, or 101 uses for a kumquat. I admit, I don't usually use this method for solving problems in a well developed story. A developed story is already full of ideas. A method like this is like pulling out a Howitzer to swat a fly. But sometimes at least starting this process will help a smaller problem.
For instance: I am 90 percent of the way to solving my MacGuffin problem, but if I were still stuck, here's how I would use the Magic of 100 to deal with this: Define the problem. I have to have a MacGuffin that affects three different characters in three different ways -- each not aware of the others. That's complicated.
So I might define three separate problems: What would Character A want? What items could Character B possess and not know the value (given that B is a smart cookie)? What sort of things would Character C keep silent about?
And with normal thinking I'd get myself lost in that: "A wants money, but B would know that's important so it can't be money, so maybe it's a secret, but how would B have that in his possession in a way that A could be seeking to get it from him without tipping his hand...?" and pretty soon I'd be lost in ideas.
With the brainstorming method you never do "it can't be that." You throw in everything and keep going. So I would start by just seeing how far I could go with just the first problem -- what does Character A want?
1. Money.
2. Suitcase of money.
3. bearer bonds.
4. bank passbook.
5. key to money
6. a map
7. a map out in the open that nobody knows what it means.
8. a map B is using as a coaster for his beer, and the rings from his glass throw off the markings, and that can be a complication later when nobody can read the map....
9. a map hidden in the piano
10. a key hidden in the piano.
11. a map etched in the metal of the tankard B is using to drink, and he thinks the coaster is the map when A tries to steal his drink.
12. a key hidden in the piano music as a code. (what kind of code?)
You'll notice that even though I was supposedly working on just the first problem, I was already getting into the second. Because I defined the questions up front, they are influencing what I do. And frankly, if I ran out of one line of thought, I could move on to others -- a deed, diamonds, his mother's diamond ring with sentimental value....
The other thing you might notice is that some of the items are objects, and some are situations. Some are even plot twists. This is another value of high numbers -- you have the freedom to go off on tangents. You could start listing ideas as to which characters are associated with the tankard or the piano, and that could give you more ideas because you suddenly realize that the thing A wants is the trust of the bartender! The bartender knows where the money (or key or map or suitcase) is and the bartender will not talk to A, so A wants to use B to get at that info.
Which leads me to another value of high numbers -- extra ideas. Let's say the trust of the bartender doesn't work for my story, but the idea is cool. I just got myself another story idea for free.
And that's really where this method shines -- new ideas. When your just starting a project, this really can open up your possibilities. You still have to define your problem up front, though. Say you want to write a flash story or a short story. You have a theme from a contest or just an idea, say from a previous brainstorming session - like the bartender idea. Or you've decided to play with new approaches to a cliche - say The Butler Did It.
Then you start listing whatever comes to mind.
1. the butler is a thief
2. the butler is a cop
3. the butler is an out-of-work longshoreman - kind of the opposite of My Man Godfrey.
4. Beautiful employer
5. what did the butler do?
6. employer in bad romance, butler breaks it up
7. butler seduces the employer
8. rival butler, each trying to undercut the other
9. servant pranks (switch salt with sugar)
10. rival butler murdered, our butler has to clear himself
11. our butler did do it after all
etc.
And when you get stuck on the ideas about the butlers trying to kill each other, you can go back to listing pranks butlers can play on each other, and then motives for pranks. You are free to go off on tangents as long as they seem interesting. (As a matter of fact you should go off on tangents - that's what this method is all about.)
I usually find that as I work through a list like this, my items get longer.
36. Okay, butler is longshoreman, and that's why he can lift the trunk with the body that his beautiful employer accidentally killed with a prank....
Or short cut ideas which refer back to an earlier idea:
74. like #27, only with turkeys instead of tigers.
Sometimes a story will take off before you get to 100, and that's great, although you can still use the brainstorming to come up with more details for the developing story, which may no longer involve a butler at all, but may involve turkeys, tigers or turtles which play pranks on beautiful employers.
The point of the 100 is to get outside of the box.
What if your style of ideas makes 100 too easy to get to? What if, say, you find yourself listing "turtles, turkeys, tigers, kumquats, ostriches" each as separate items? Wouldn't that be cheating?
Nope, you're not cheating. That's just how your mind works. Keep working that way. Just raise the number of your goal. You get to go for 200 or 500 or 1000. (And always keep checking back with your purpose, or at least with earlier list items to bring yourself back into focus if you find yourself just listing pointless words.)
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Magic of 100 - Finding Great Ideas
Today didn't turn out to be as long or grueling as I'd feared, so I did get a chance to rest up a little and can write a real blog post. I also pushed my idea generation far enough to be able to start writing on Old Paint again, but I am still short a detail or two.
Of course, real idea generation takes some effort and concentration. You can't do it justice when you're tired. And frankly, I think many people don't really devote sufficient time to real idea generation. They think as far as they need to, and that's it.
Kate Wilhelm had a wonderful bit of advice for us at Clarion. She said that whatever your story was about, the first idea you come up with for the ending is something everyone else would think of too. The second idea will still be something most people would come up with. The third is something most writers would come up with. The fourth would still be something many writers would think of. The fifth idea is where you start getting original.
Now, I don't know that there is a specific number that works for everybody like that. But the idea is to be the person who puts in that extra bit of effort nobody else puts in.
Many many years later I heard an interview on the radio with a journalist who had written a book about a very successful criminal gang. It was an amazingly innovative and creative organization -- not just for a criminal enterprise but for any enterprise. One of the things he commented on was that any gang member who was in prison was required to use it as a think tank. If you were in solitary confinement, you had to come up with 1000 ideas a day for the betterment of the gang.
When I told a friend of mine who was a working writer and a mother, her immediate reaction was, "Sure, it's easy to come up with so many ideas if you don't have housework, and distractions and kids and dogs to take care of." And she was right: while you might not think of incarceration as an opportunity, the fact is most of us simply can't shake loose that much time in our day.
But we can -- and do -- put ourselves into temporary solitary. However, because we don't have that outside enforcement, we tend concentrate less deeply, and our goals are much lower. Five ideas seems like a plenty high number to most of us.
Five isn't very much. As a matter of fact, I daresay ten isn't much either. Let's face it, that gang chief could have all of his gang members coming up with ten ideas a day, and not be limited to those guys who are in prison. He'd end up with even more ideas, but he wouldn't have the level of creativity.
The reason is simple: there is something magical about super high numbers. Just think about it. When you sit down to generate some ideas, odds are you'll come up with about five or six, and then stop. If you set a goal of more, and you push further, you'll come up with three or four more....
And then you'll get stuck. You may not realize it, but you just ran through the obvious ideas. It usually gets really hard at about ten ideas. If you press on, you'll squeeze out a few more. They may or may not be good, but they will come painfully.
But if you press on a little further, you'll suddenly have a new burst of ideas. These ideas will be rougher and crazier, but one will beget another and you'll rack up another ten or more before the ideas just seem too stupid or silly.
Now, here's the trick. The "too stupid or silly" is actually the wall of the box your thinking is stuck in. You're hitting up against things you would simply not consider at all. If you want to really expand your horizons and think outside the box and get really truly creative, you need to get beyond that.
And that's why a super high goal is essential. If you set a goal of 25 ideas, you'll get somewhere. You'll give yourself some good material. If you set your goal at a hundred or more, you will force yourself to consider those stupid ideas. The awful ones that will just never work. And then you'll exhaust them too, and you'll exhaust all of the stupid aspects of them, and the repetitive variations, until you actually start coming up with ways they could work. And at that point, your mind is wide open, and you can start thinking of things you've never thought of -- good or bad -- and seeing what you can do with them.
You may not be able to do a super long list of ideas in a single sitting, but set the goal anyway. See how many you can get done in the time allotted and then take it up again later.
This method works for any kind of creative ideas you could need: marketing ideas, blog post ideas, flash fiction ideas, character ideas, ending ideas, setting ideas. Ideas for your job, or for losing weight, or for entertaining your cat.
The key is to set yourself a problem, set a high goal, and then go at it until your mind opens up.
Give it a try.
(In the comments someone wanted more information about how this worked, so I wrote a follow up post - a practical guide to the Magic of 100.)
Of course, real idea generation takes some effort and concentration. You can't do it justice when you're tired. And frankly, I think many people don't really devote sufficient time to real idea generation. They think as far as they need to, and that's it.
Kate Wilhelm had a wonderful bit of advice for us at Clarion. She said that whatever your story was about, the first idea you come up with for the ending is something everyone else would think of too. The second idea will still be something most people would come up with. The third is something most writers would come up with. The fourth would still be something many writers would think of. The fifth idea is where you start getting original.
Now, I don't know that there is a specific number that works for everybody like that. But the idea is to be the person who puts in that extra bit of effort nobody else puts in.
Many many years later I heard an interview on the radio with a journalist who had written a book about a very successful criminal gang. It was an amazingly innovative and creative organization -- not just for a criminal enterprise but for any enterprise. One of the things he commented on was that any gang member who was in prison was required to use it as a think tank. If you were in solitary confinement, you had to come up with 1000 ideas a day for the betterment of the gang.
When I told a friend of mine who was a working writer and a mother, her immediate reaction was, "Sure, it's easy to come up with so many ideas if you don't have housework, and distractions and kids and dogs to take care of." And she was right: while you might not think of incarceration as an opportunity, the fact is most of us simply can't shake loose that much time in our day.
But we can -- and do -- put ourselves into temporary solitary. However, because we don't have that outside enforcement, we tend concentrate less deeply, and our goals are much lower. Five ideas seems like a plenty high number to most of us.
Five isn't very much. As a matter of fact, I daresay ten isn't much either. Let's face it, that gang chief could have all of his gang members coming up with ten ideas a day, and not be limited to those guys who are in prison. He'd end up with even more ideas, but he wouldn't have the level of creativity.
The reason is simple: there is something magical about super high numbers. Just think about it. When you sit down to generate some ideas, odds are you'll come up with about five or six, and then stop. If you set a goal of more, and you push further, you'll come up with three or four more....
And then you'll get stuck. You may not realize it, but you just ran through the obvious ideas. It usually gets really hard at about ten ideas. If you press on, you'll squeeze out a few more. They may or may not be good, but they will come painfully.
But if you press on a little further, you'll suddenly have a new burst of ideas. These ideas will be rougher and crazier, but one will beget another and you'll rack up another ten or more before the ideas just seem too stupid or silly.
Now, here's the trick. The "too stupid or silly" is actually the wall of the box your thinking is stuck in. You're hitting up against things you would simply not consider at all. If you want to really expand your horizons and think outside the box and get really truly creative, you need to get beyond that.
And that's why a super high goal is essential. If you set a goal of 25 ideas, you'll get somewhere. You'll give yourself some good material. If you set your goal at a hundred or more, you will force yourself to consider those stupid ideas. The awful ones that will just never work. And then you'll exhaust them too, and you'll exhaust all of the stupid aspects of them, and the repetitive variations, until you actually start coming up with ways they could work. And at that point, your mind is wide open, and you can start thinking of things you've never thought of -- good or bad -- and seeing what you can do with them.
You may not be able to do a super long list of ideas in a single sitting, but set the goal anyway. See how many you can get done in the time allotted and then take it up again later.
This method works for any kind of creative ideas you could need: marketing ideas, blog post ideas, flash fiction ideas, character ideas, ending ideas, setting ideas. Ideas for your job, or for losing weight, or for entertaining your cat.
The key is to set yourself a problem, set a high goal, and then go at it until your mind opens up.
Give it a try.
(In the comments someone wanted more information about how this worked, so I wrote a follow up post - a practical guide to the Magic of 100.)
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wiped out - but a favorite old post
Today wiped me out and I have to get up early tomorrow to assist with a morning class AND stay late. I know I promised my Miracle of 100 post, but that may have to wait until Thursday.
In the meantime, I notice a lot of writers talking about "promotion fatigue" lately. They've been running around flogging their books. Designing covers, websites, ads. Paying for ads. Chatting on forums and commenting on blogs and writing their blogs. And worrying at every step about making a good impression.
Here's an old post reminding folks about how marketing is a waste of energy until you have a large body of work:
Marketing and the Physics of Water
Stop promoting so hard and live your life. Write. Do social networking only as it works for you as a person. And don't spend ALL your social time with other writers.
In the meantime, I notice a lot of writers talking about "promotion fatigue" lately. They've been running around flogging their books. Designing covers, websites, ads. Paying for ads. Chatting on forums and commenting on blogs and writing their blogs. And worrying at every step about making a good impression.
Here's an old post reminding folks about how marketing is a waste of energy until you have a large body of work:
Marketing and the Physics of Water
Stop promoting so hard and live your life. Write. Do social networking only as it works for you as a person. And don't spend ALL your social time with other writers.
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