My friend Yvonne from the Netherlands took a series of trips to Norway. I'm linking her travelogues here for my own use.

and what will this be?
norway 2
norway-wednesday
norway?

***

Jim Hines publishes the first of his Novel Survey Results.

And now, I've got to do some appointments and run some errands. Writing coming up! Loving the full time writing life for this week.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Julie Rose sends along a link to another gorgeous candidate for frost elf chases: the Myrdal Plateau. Of course, there is a gallery of gorgeous pictures from the trip as well. Thanks to both Julie and Craig for letting me link. Some of these pictures are breathtaking.

Some more Norway pictures can be found at Tifosi, the soccer blog my friend Prairie writes. There's a lot of soccer in here, but also some country capturing pictures.

I'd really like to see this stuff for real. Probably not in time to do any good for this manuscript, but maybe I can rig something for the sequel.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

The first two new scenes feature a horse chase across a winter landscape. Alfheim is patterned on Scandinavia, and I am looking for places to have such a chase. Which is why you get this exciting entry on Hardangervidda.

Ready? Here we go.

What I needed was a flat feature of lands embedded in mountains. A cave in the ice is a feature I intend to add in myself. What looks promising?

Hardangerjokulen. If the glacier is good enough for George Lucas in The Empire Strikes Back, it's good enough for me. This travelogue shows some beautiful pictures of the area.

The glacier itself is situated in Hardangervidda, a peneplain. Peneplains are one of geography's little controversies. The theory is that erosion causes these sorts of plains to build up near sea level. The lack of formations of peneplains in this time, though, casts some doubt upon that theory. Most peneplains are old, and they have been uplifted through orogenic (mountain forming) activity.

In 1981, Norway created this area into a national park. Apparently, there are loads of activities to do all year around. In winter, snow activities are king. In summer, the hikers and fish enthusiasts come out.

If you're interested in getting there, Hardangervidda is between Bergen and Oslo, sort of on the way. I think, geographically, this will do quite nicely.

And it should also do quite nicely for tomorrow's writing session(s).

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

From over at Matt Cardin's journal, Getting to Know Your Creative Demon, Part 3, part of the ongoing exploratory series.

I'm off to research cold land masses. That is all.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Spring break=me pretending to be a full time writer. I've put in a lot of writing time today. While I don't have an excerpt for you after all, here's where I've been and what I've done today.

Chapters 1 and 2: Complete
Chapters 3 and 4: 3 scenes in need of deep revision

Issues: Think about how to handle POV. This book may need to have more of a sense of narrator, given you have a lot of POV going on.

Well, I'm going to send out some short story feedback, and then I'm going to knock off a while.

Hope your day is going well.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Hope you have better luck today than Caesar had!

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It's not going to quite happen, that handout I need for the academic conference I'm going to right after break, so I'll be taking that home with me.

That's the only work thing I have to take home. Oh yeah.

The writing all break plan should begin on Monday. I'm excited. Did I mention I'm excited? Because I am excited.

First, though, have a weekend of hanging out with friends. I've got to get a role playing game around for them (the geeky horror! the geeky horror!). There's a Tupperware party tonight too (the Midwest horror! the Midwest horror!)

I'm going to try to post interesting snippets all next week, so I don't just keep coming here and saying exciting things like I'm writing and I have nothing to say.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

We're finishing up a few odds and ends before our next major release. Our mighty Ops guys continue to slay spambots and balance load times on a highwire without a safety net (which is kind of tough dressed in full ninja gear). Down on solid ground, we're celebrating this week's virtual birthday party with a warm toast to pants. If you can rearrange the letters of your favorite city, state, and/or country (feel free to combine these elements) to spell one of Frank's favorite treats (e.g., pants, wire, paper, etc.), he'll send you over a can of whipped cream to top it all off (provided you return the empty can for his midnight snack)! And, with that, let the word scrambling commence!

Stuff you should know:

We're still working on the delayed/missing notifications issue. Sorry, we're frustrated too. We'll keep you posted. Last week, we became aware that a recently-implemented script was overwriting affiliate referral fees for some of our users. Once we confirmed this, our Ops team quickly removed the script. Please be aware that, while we may beta-test other affiliate scripts down the line, we will take greater measures to ensure that no existing user-referral arrangements are impacted in any way. While we plan to stick to a weekly news schedule, if we have a release in between regular newsletters, we'll post here to keep you informed. You can also check lj_releases for current release information.

To our paid users, we send squirrels in love!

If you have a paid or permanent account, you can send five free Squirrels in love vgifts through Monday, March 15th at 4pm, PST! You'll see both the free and the $0.99 squirrels displayed until they've scurried off to their new homes. Please send only one vgift at a time. In other words, you'll need to complete check-out and start a new order for each vgift you send. If you're not receiving vgifts (from friends and/or Frank), you may have disabled them. To enable vgifts, visit Edit profile (under Profile), scroll down to the bottom of the page, and select 'Do not disable' from the drop-down menu. Have fun!

Help is on the way!

We're pleased to announce the winner of our first charitable vgift poll, Doctors without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières, which provides critical medical care to under-served populations around the world. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of the proceeds we raise from the sale of this vgift (we'll cover credit card fees). We invite you to start recommending nonprofits for our next fundraising drive at ljnewscontests. We'll take suggestions through the month and post a poll in the news during the first week of April to let you choose the recipient. We thank you, again, for your passion and generosity.

We've crowned a header

Congratulations to ohterlus for submitting the winning header, which will go live next week and keep us leafy through mid-April! You can submit designs for our next header contest at ljnewscontests now until March 31st. We'll post a poll in the news to let you decide which header will sit at the top of LiveJournal from mid-April to mid-May. All artistic interpretations are welcome. The winner will get a $25 LiveJournal gift certificate. All other contributors will receive $5 gift certificates. Our heartfelt appreciation for sharing your talent and creativity!

For this week's winning photo and more adventures with Frank & Meme, we'll catch you under the cut!

( Read more... )

As of today, I'm driving this book. I just spent the last hour plotting the book, and I know everything that happens. Who's doing what, where the emotional stuff fits in, all of it.

Although the alternate title could now be Teen Elf, I'm still pretty pleased. It's definitely a YA book. The end of the book is the culmination of romance that develops over the series of the adventure. Sure, there's heartache and there's a tone of bittersweet for some of the characters as well.

And interestingly, it sets itself up for a Decorah sequel.

At any rate, now the plan is to write all this into reality. I have an entire week off next week, and I will spend it working on this book.

It feels so good to have a map, finally.

Off to read some other people's work. I have a full manuscript (about halfway through that one) and a couple of short stories in the hopper, so I'm excited to do it.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

I know that writing is a lot of unglamorous hard work. Yes, yes. It can be hard and frustrating during those fallow times, or when the writing isn't going where you want it to, or the words seem particularly insipid to you as you pen them. I've been there. And I know edits and suggestions can just make you tear your hair out!

Right now, I'm in that whole 'nother place, one of the big reasons I keep coming back to writing in the first place. The happy place.

I'm back on the troll story pretty much in full force, and after discovering that what I've already done mostly works, I'm feeling very encouraged to move forward. The way before me is not clear, and I know I'll throw away more stuff before I keep it. I'm clearing a lot of debris out of my brain by zero drafting. Then the real stuff shows up, and I sketch it down, then flesh it out.

The plan is to get the plot and action, smooth out the glitches and add the transitions, look at what the characters are thinking, and add the emotional veneer over the top. Very structural and work oriented, yeah?

Except now I am in the spot where I realize that this story is about someone and something.

Sometimes my stories are not about anything. Sometimes they are about everything. Substance of Shadows is both about life as an abused child, yet at the same time is a love affair with my husband, because one of the characters reminds me of him, and I'm sharing him with the world, in a sense.

The Winter the Troll Danced with Old Nick is in part my way of exorcising issues with my mother, but it is now turning into my love affair with my friend Lisa.

Lisa and I were almost inseparable at one time. We spent a great deal of time together, as much as we could, and enjoyed each others friendship very much. We still do when we get together.

But...life happened. We were entirely swept away by becoming too busy to see each other, except on occasion, the way these things work, whether you're far away from each other or closer to home. The fade away was both easy and hard for both of us, as these things are.

Part of this story encapsulates that. There's a close friendship between the two new characters in the story that's almost painful, yet is incredibly close. They're at an awkward time, but deep down there is closeness and concern, a sort of friendship that can be rewarding at its best and painful at its worst. It takes me back to times that were not always easy, but were most often rewarding, and I hope it will do the same for my friend when she reads it.

I'm not trying to make a statement about friendship or love. I'm trying to portray what they are like, as true in my experience. It makes me feel good when it feels that there is more to my writing than moving words around on a page. It makes me feel like my writing has a soul.

Do you find yourself drawing on your life experiences as you write, and in what ways?

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

DISCLAIMER: This is only one of many ways to construct tribal lays.

DISCLAIMER2: I may not know what I'm doing, but at least I know why I'm doing it. (Analysis takes place after the writing; I'm not consciously thinking, "Now let's set the scene . . . now let's tell them who is the parent.")

Here's how I would explain why I did what I did in the opening paragraphs of the short story "Clownshoes." Original text of paragraph is interspersed with bracketed explanations. Those of you who hate parentheses and asides should scroll down to the next entry--nothing to see here.

My brother and I are begging Mom to let us wait in the car. [Sets the tone. Viewpoint character is young enough that "Mom" still runs the show. We get the feeling there is a reason for this reluctance to get out of the car. Default "suburban street" setting is probably being assumed by most readers.]

"Come on, just this once," Tyler says. [Ah, this is the brother.]

"Don't be ridiculous." She adjusts her striped Afro wig and honks her round red rubber nose. "Besides, I need you for my bits." [OMG, she is dressed as a . . . clown?]

"Your bits, Ma'am?" he says in his Elvis voice. Making a face, he tosses his backpack across his shoulder into the back seat, where it skims my knees. [This tells you that Ty is kind of a drama king and class clown who likes to act out and can do voices. He is also the dominant sibling over the viewpoint character. Backpack tells you they just came from, school, maybe?]

"Watch it." I kick the olive green pack onto the floor on top of his matching jacket. He's into Army surplus for some stupid reason. Probably all about turning thirteen and Becoming A Real Man, big whoop. There's an up-side to being eleven and still sane without the hormone rush. [Ha! I sneaked in their ages. Note that we still don't know if the POV character is another boy. . . .]

"CheyAnne," Mom says to me in the rear view mirror. Typical. She always comes after ME for stuff that's HIS fault. "You two have to be there for the card tricks, and if I need to choose someone from the audience." She glares at me as if I was the one who'd mocked her. "This gig pays our bills, so why not relax and enjoy it." [Aha! CheyAnne is a girl with a weird hippie-style name. This indicates the mother is one of Those Types. Also, the eternal fencing battle between mother and teenage daughter has already begun. We also now understand that she's a clown who does parties for children, not a circus or carnival employee.]

"And think of England." Tyler makes his voice a quavering Julia Child. He ought to be a voice actor. [Just underlining how Tyler feels about the dang parties and that he will fight being a part of them. At the end, spoiler alert, he defends his mom when an older kid mocks the idea of being a clown. So that's not exactly a character CHANGE, but it reveals a deeper layer behind the character.]

Mom ignores that, and we all slam out of the Kia. Tyler heads around to help me drag her trunk out of the hatchback. This is a birthday party, so she'll be using the full arsenal of tricks, sleight of hand, and slapstick idiocy the likes of which Jerry Lewis would be embarrassed to resort to. [Now we've got the suspicions confirmed--it's a kiddie party, and middle schoolers are totally NOT into this stuff. Oy! A Kia means they aren't exactly rich, to some people. It's almost a clown car . . . to snobs, anyway.]

SO! Instead of being a random bunch of typing that I did just to irritate you, you now see that there was method to the madness. Does it work? I don't know. But I wanted to show that there should be reasons for what you are writing in your opening, beyond just "hook them." There should be some way for readers to clue in pretty quickly about the age and gender of the narrator and of the other characters, and about the setting they're in. I know Ursula LeGuin or somebody important like that said to start 100 miles underground on the day before the end of the world and DON'T TELL THEM, but I think we DO need some kind of hook to hang things on or we will be too disoriented to continue reading. I also like to put in a couple of the characters' important quirks, by implication or just by stating them. For example, Tyler has a voice talent for mocking, and the mom is convinced that her kids should participate happily in the "shows." These will be important later on.

This is a literary story in the sense that it's not a fast-paced genre thing, and the plot is not the main reason to read it. You probably will want to write genre stories, because you have some hope of selling those. (*grin*)

You won't necessarily do things this way. But it's one way to do things.

Here's something that has been bugging me big-time since the original problems with Toyotas that have sticking accelerators. (Back when they lied and said it was floor mats, I wondered why all Toy-owners wouldn't just rip out those floor mats--not the carpet, but the added-on floor mats--immediately!)

When I was in Driver's Ed, our instructor told us (and I remember this quite vividly) that if the car ever ran away with us, and the brake wasn't enough to stop the car, there was a simple solution. "Turn the ignition off!" yelled one kid. That was my thinking, as well. "No," said the owl, "because then you lose the power brakes and more importantly the power STEERING boost, and do you want to try to steer this thing that has power steering without the vacuum pump on? It's much tougher than steering a car with a wheel that isn't power steering." We tried it and found he was hootin' the truth.

"So," said our wise owl, "what you do is shift the transmission from Drive into Neutral. NOT into Reverse! Not anywhere else but just into Neutral!"

"Can you DO that?"

"Yes! See where you can go from D to 1 or 2 for climbing hills?" (This was still true in the 1970s and 1980s; I don't know if automatic transmission cars still even have "2" and "1" gears on the shifter. I should go look before I post, but bah. I'm wingin' it. Do you think that gets me into trouble very often??)

"Yeah. So you can shift into neutral? Like just BOOM, even though there's only the automatic clutch?" Our eyes lit up. "That means the power won't be TRANSMITTED using the transmission from the engine to the drive shaft and wheels. So it won't be engaged!"

"Exactly. Then you'll have a car that's just going ZOOM without adding to your speed. Okay, BUT. You still have the momentum and you're still rolling. Now you brake, and if that's not enough, use the emergency brake. Sure, that's going to ruin the hand brake, but who cares if it saves you and/or the pedestrians and vehicles you're going to otherwise crash into?"

I agree. Even if this ruins the transmission, I would argue that this is better than being in a runaway car that won't stop until it hits something that will probably NOT be a haystack (which is what the Scooby-Doo kids always used to hit in order to stop . . . but there just aren't any convenient haystacks in suburbia. Or anywhere. Not any more.)

Anyone out there know if this is still a viable idea? CAN you shift into "N" from "D" at any time while an automatic transmission car is rolling? Mama is arguing with me that you can't do that and that CNN told her so. Of course, if you are driving a stick (manual transmission, which used to be called "standard"), this won't apply, and you can just stomp the clutch and rip down into any other gear you like, such as neutral. But the automatic transmissions of today may be much more fussy.

If you hear an awful grinding noise and the transmission falls out of your Toyota onto the blacktop when you try this as an experiment, don't blame me. As my Dad always said, "Piece of Japanese junk! 3@!%$^%!!" (But remember, he served in WWII. Radio/radar operator landed on Leyte, standing up to his knees in typhoon waters, learning to drive in a Jeep. He never really forgave the Japanese for WWII.) Also, who cares if you ruin a car that is trying to kill you? But maybe that's just me.

Sarah Prineas wrote a pet story today, and asked us to share ours. Right now, we have two wonderful cats: Sekhmet, war princess of the upstairs, and Bastet, the queen of all cats. In the past we have had Michael, god emperor of the yard. All 3 of these cats filled or have filled our lives with warmth and softness, hauteur and love all at the same time.

There's always a special one, though. Toby died at the end of 2006. He was the victim of the poor pet owners across the street and Urinary Tract Infection. This is the story I wrote when he died. It still makes me tear up, because he was that well-loved. My apologies to those of you who have seen it.

Yellow Cat and the Man

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

I'd like to draw attention to this response to my post earlier. Sylvia Rachel makes some strong points that I feel are exemplary.

***

Tonight I've written about 1200 words. Sure they're sketchy and not well-crafted, but they're new. I'll take it.

***

I understand that a box of Hulk Hercules: Professional Wrestler books will be ordered for me on Friday, and I should get them as soon as they are printed and shipped. I will let you know when they are in the house. I'm playing this low key, but it'll be nice to have them.

I gotta go clean the kitchen. Because that's the way I roll.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

This has been on my mind for a while, and I think the ideas about it have coalesced at the crossroads of Jim Hines's entry about rape victims pressing charges and watching the Academy Awards last night, and seeing Mo'nique win her well-deserved best actress award.

I've been public about my experiences as a sexually abused child for some time, inasmuch as I'm not afraid to talk about being a survivor. My hope is always that somewhere being public can help those who are still living with the big secret to realize that there is a world outside of their victimhood.

I'll probably cut this about here, because this might not be something all of you want to read, and I can respect that. I'm going to talk about Mo'nique's portrayal and why I believe that we've got to encourage children of abuse to make that first step. This is a very different kind of post than Jim's post because I am talking about children.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

I'm quoting piano instructor Kevin Guess here, out of context. He was talking about philosophical stuff on the piano players' forum. I think it applies just in general, so I'm sharing it.

"Marketing is for those who want to reach people with whom they don't and won't have a lasting relationship. That is why the worst products are usually the most heavily advertised."--Kevin Guess

"Nothing can survive unless it can find a niche. Those things seeking a niche can't control the environment in which they seek it. We live in a business/technology/politics-dominated world. To business & politics, the value anything has is SOLELY its usefulness in making a deal or shaping a deal in favor of the one doing the making or the shaping. To these people, art has no intrinsic value. To technology, art is something to be quantified and objectified. All three of these pursuits are purely exploitative. Everything is a means to an end. Nothing has any intrinsic value."--also Kevin Guess

If that isn't depressing enough. . . .

I don't know whether I'll find my niche or not. Sure, there IS an audience for my work. Contest judges (especially in literary contests) like to give it awards. A dear friend said last night, "We've talked about your voice and style before. You're not a Stephenie Meyer writer, but a Bas Bleu--and that's all right." I suppose she banged the hammer right on the mosquito; I've never aimed to click with the majority, but with those who like to read what I like to read. That minority is still kicking, for now, although I don't know whether I will be able to reach them.

I simply CANNOT SEE the things that most readers see as repetition and boring detail in my work. It must be part of my essential voice. I'd been hoping that it was just a couple of instances in the newer stuff, but no. Yes, I would LIKE to learn how to recognize these passages, even if I ultimately decide to keep them instead of taking them out. But I don't believe I have it in me. There's some kind of mental block.

Several people have taken time out of their own workday to point out examples. This should have been very helpful, but the sad part is that after they point out these parts I can see that you could tighten it up a bit, sure, and that doesn't bug me, but I can't go on and do the rest of the homework. You know, like when you follow the teacher's working out on the board of the math problem, but when you look at the problems in the book, you cannot imitate her and use her algorithm no matter how much you believed you could. I can't see why these passages irritate readers or would pull them out of the story, although it is obviously happening. What's worse is that they then say, "there's a lot more just like that, just look," and I CANNOT SEE IT.

Here I am turning 51 on March 18th (oh God there has been some mistake in the numbering of years, because I cannot be that old) and am just now finding out that the one thing I thought I could do (and that my teachers all through school, including college, including college creative writing graduate courses, thought I could do well) has turned to junk. Perhaps it always was junk.

I've finally had to acknowledge that. It's very tough to internalize. I have tried and tried to "fix" it, without much success. (I generally just end up with DIFFERENT asides replacing the originals.) It's kind of sad that I'm so goddamn stupid that I always just breezed along believing that there were just different tastes and so forth, and that I was basically not a bad writer. I can certainly see how a depressive type might really go into the Black Dog pit with something like this. (Not a cry for help: I'm way too selfish to go down there--just ask my family, who loves to tell me how selfish I am for taking piano lessons and insisting on a few moments to myself now and then instead of constantly waiting on them. Selfish types like to continue to hang around, if only to afflict others and whine.) But I'll never be able to believe that "snow" means the same thing as "silent, secret, cleansing snow." Or that "a democratic government should survive" means exactly the same as and is a better phrasing than "government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." (No, I don't claim that my little scribblings compare to these eloquent examples--they're merely examples of when the trope has worked for the readership. It doesn't, not any more.)

No wonder I wanted to go back to the piano with a teacher who serves as a trained judge and arbiter of taste. [You're probably thinking that "teacher" covers it well enough, aren't you? But not all teachers serve as judges or know what the consensus is. Some are there to encourage you, raise your self-esteem, make you feel good and have fun, but don't mind much if you never improve. Their sanity is more important to them than dogging a student who simply cannot "get it." That's fine, but not what I'm after.] When you play Mozart, the "rules" are that you have to play the correct notes in the correct rhythm, and you have to have the proper articulation--play legato where he wants legato, staccato where he wants staccato--and dynamics, and then you get a little wiggle room as far as interpretation like rubato, "breathing" at the end of a phrase, a bit of emphasis here and there. If you can do this instead of "pounding it out" or jerking through the score like a weed-eater through a cornfield, then you're doing it right. And we can show you how to improve. There are objective ways to evaluate your performance, rubrics to use that say, "This performance is what we expect." It may not be transcendent or definitive, but it's correct, and Mr. Mozart is not sitting on his Heavenly cloud and wincing.

When I play K. 545 now, it sounds like Mozart, at least. At first it didn't. I had to learn the notes and get used to trilling against an Alberti bass, and get up to speed. But I knew what I needed to do, saw the target, and I got there. I don't mean that I have the piece "down." I haven't yet brought it up to performance level. As far as "mastering" it, that would take a lifetime. The best I can hope for is to gain some insight and be able to bring something new to it so that when I do play it for myself, I don't shame myself.

I used to think that when I wrote, I didn't shame myself. It is tough to admit that I've been wrong. It's like the year I spent after college trying to get a particular group of people to like me: it amused the hell out of them, and I should've caught on WAY SOONER that it was simply not to be, and that I could never measure up. Not because I didn't try, and not because I didn't try to follow the advice that a couple of well-meaning InCrowd types gave me. Because I didn't have it in me. I still don't.

PIANO RECALL!

Yamaha has recalled 20,000 pianos due to a problem with the pedal sticking, causing pianists to play faster than they normally would, resulting in a dangerous number of accidentals. The sticky pedal also makes it harder for pianists to come to a full stop at the end of a piece, making it extremely risky for audiences.

Yamaha spokesman Rilly Redonkulus insisted that the company has not been covering up its problems. "Those amateur piano players are mostly at fault," he claimed in a media interview. "They shouldn't even be pedaling. Especially in Baroque music!"

At first they tried to blame this on errant carpeting under pianos, but after a long scuffle with Monsanto, it was shown that carpeting has no effect on piano pedals except to keep heels from bruising. The company will make repairs in the order that pianos are received.

What's next! Be careful out there.