Progress Report

I’ve actually been on a writing kick lately, which is extraordinary (to say the least). The manuscript of Aya’s Wings has grown to fifty-two pages, which may not seem like much, but for me it’s quite a ways. I started this thing last September, seven months ago, and while I’m pleased with and proud of what I’ve written so far, it’s often been a paragraph at a time.

I’m not sure what inspired this latest binge. Last week was Spring Break, so I had more time to write, but if anything, having more free time usually brings my writing to a standstill. I want to write most during finals week, the night before a big paper is due, etc. So maybe it started a couple of weeks ago when I had a family therapy midterm? Or maybe now that I’m out of the first couple of chapters, where everything is new and I’m still feeling my way around a strange world where not all of the rules have been formed yet, things will be a little easier?

Maybe I’m finally falling in love with the characters. I have an unfortunate tendency to get attached to them, and when Arylle was finished it felt almost like betrayal to write about other people. But with every page I’m adoring Amarinne and crushing on Narun more and more. I don’t think anyone will ever replace the first cast of characters I ever wrote about, but I’m starting to have fun with these guys.

I also needed to let go of Arylle and realize that, imperfections though the story may have, I’m satisfied with it and think that it’s about as good as it is going to get. Strange timing, when my mother just asked me yesterday, as she listened to the furious clicking of my keyboard, “What are you doing?”

“Writing,” I said, my usual one-word response.

“Again? You’ve been doing a lot of that.”

“Yeah, I’m finally getting into it again.”

“Aren’t you finished with it yet?”

“No, this is my second book. The first one is finished.”

“Well rather than starting on something else, aren’t you going to try to publish that one?”

“Not right now.” I don’t understand why it’s so hard to fathom that I might have other interests than slogging through query letters and summaries. Why can’t I be happy with my completed project? Is publishing the only way to make it matter? What matters to me is that here is something I started when I was thirteen years old; I’ve written it and rewritten it, and now I’m finally happy with it and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Doing research on the market and sucking up to various heads of industry would spoil the experience for me. That’s the grunt work, for me, and maybe someday I’ll be willing to put my head down and do it, but that day isn’t now. Right now, Arylle is done. Aya’s Wings is just beginning. And I’m looking forward to seeing it through.

-Melissa

Read more »

Posted in: characters,inspiration,writing

World and Electronic Document Building

Again, I apologise for ditching out on everybody last week again. I was more tired than hell by the time I got home from a long day at work and so just could not write so late in the evening. They were training me on some technology at my job with the state and so it was, as exciting as it was, quite complicated and some what intensive in that it felt like there was very little room for mistakes. But my trainers had been really good with me and very understanding that it was all new to me.

Speaking about technology, and the machine they trained me on did involve documents, I've been getting more into reading up on and even learning a variety of program languages. Right now I'm taking an online course in XML through my job, and, as complicated as it can get, it is really interesting. I'm also reading articles on the subject and am just finishing up a book on the history of computer programming that's been really interesting. The more I read up on computer programming and even computer innovation in general, the more I discover computer technology to be an art. XML is especially great for document production and therefore writing and publishing both in print and electronically. It is much like HTML, or more like XHTML which is actually a combination of XML and HTML. The first one means "hyper textual markup language, the other "extensive hyper textual markup language". And so XML stands for "extensive markup language". It is often used with HTML and so that's how XHTML formed as its own program language although all three of these languages are not programming languages in the same since as C++ or JAVA are which are made more for the hardware's function. XML, HTML and XHTML are languages specifically used to produce online documents and Websites.

I think I mentioned last time that, as with nearly all other artistic professions in this country, opportunities for software and program development professions with the private sector have become a somewhat rarity. But we as artists (writers as well as illustrators) can always use such electronic documentation languages for our own art. These languages can be used to construct and design our own Websites that we can display our stories, poems and art on and promote and market them. The great thing about such languages is that we don't have to be full time programmers just to use them! In using them we are working with both a science (technology) and an art to make art, and for some of us to make a science that has not come into actuality yet and therefore to make science fiction! And for some of you fantasy writers and artists? Developing electronic documents, particularly for Web and application development, is very much like world building.

I really see a lot of avenues and possibilities with the combining of art and computer technology, including program languages, coming to us even more than they already have!

Until next time . . .

--STR

Read more »

Character Ingredients

I only have time for a quick post this evening, but I'd like to use it to share a quote from Isabel Allende that I've had written on a scrap of paper and shoved in a desk drawer for many years now. When asked what she believes every character needs, she said, "A complete biography, a defined personality, and an individual voice."

I'm not the best at any of these things; I tend to let the story draw it out by force (e.g. if I dropped Amarinne in a pool of sharks, what memories would she draw upon, what aspects of self would be revealed, and what choice words would she utter? Rather than meditate on these things without a specific situation as background).

Allende, of course, seems to have no difficulty in following her own suggestions, as her characters are some of the most vivid I've ever encountered in books. For me, though, it's advice to fall back on when I'm stuck.

-Melissa

Read more »

Posted in: Allende,characters,inspiration

Books, Books, Books

I assume we all read. Reading is important to writing, it is food for our process. They inform us as to what the industry is doing, and are the best escape created.

Well, movies/shows and video games also begin to offer writers' inspiration. Suddenly books are a part of a wider venue for written media than has ever existed before. This is affecting how books are sold and even what books are. While most people--especially us bookworms--do not buy e-books, that there is a trend toward e-books is certain. They won't take over by tomorrow. But certainly as far as nonfiction goes, e-books make sense.

What about novels?

I think its a question of context, and personally I'm waiting for technology to improve/integrate a bit more before I branch out to "e-books." Yes, branch out--as a reader I do not expect to ever leave print behind. But i can see particular instances where e-books are more practical.

A colleague of mine on this blog mentioned the downfall of globalism...because of corporations' failure, and I want to expand on this idea. I will disagree slightly. I think that what is currently happening is that the consolidation of corporations feeds the globalism and forces independent publishers (who will need to include e-book editions in order to compete with the Big Six) to go global as well. It is far easier to outsource now than ever before.

As booksellers (small stores as well as big corporate ones) go online, marketing, design, etc are outsourced. With publishing, the printers may well be on another continent entirely. In order to gain that salary, and that profit, you might need to be capable of selling to Canada at the very least. We are becoming at once more localized and more global. It is the same dichotomy as our Real Life and Online existence. We are both. Understanding the paradox of our existence will be essential to understanding the future of the industry. The small publisher will, at some point, be selling their books to English speakers/readers all over the world. The resources used to create the books, and perhaps even the printers, may come from very far away. Yet, somehow, the connection of people in this manner provides a tighter global network. This is provided that the internet produces the cottage-industry success I believe is "possible."

"Possible" is different from what may actually happen... still, I think as a reader and aspiring writer that the industry will be incredibly different in a decade. All we can do right now is wait and see what direction things go in. Until then, I am buying half my books (print) from Amazon. Sorry publishers, I like the pre-order option and the fact that I can order from my house. :D

--Drea

Read more »

Faces

I’m pretty bad at visualizing things. When it comes to writing, this means that although I don’t have difficulty with superficial physical characteristics (long black hair, deep blue eyes, etc), I’m hopeless at putting it all together in my mind and knowing what my characters actually look like.

Years ago, I tried to draw them, but unless my stories were populated with misshapen lumps, it didn’t do me much good. When I write, I see the scene happening in my mind. If I can’t see the characters clearly, I can’t accurately transcribe what they’re doing.

This weekend, I realized that I had lost several hours to scouring google images for the cast of Aya’s Wings. I had already found a few of them months ago, but I wanted to round out the rest. The above, for example, is an actress by the name of Maude Adams. She was very famous around the turn of the twentieth century and, by all accounts that I’ve found, she was a decent person as well. And she bears a resemblance to Amarinne Thelorian. Not an exact replica, mind you. Amarinne is blonder, younger, sadder. There are many photos of the lovely Miss Adams, but she only really looks like Am here. But it’s enough for me to work with.

I wondered, as I was searching for them all, if this were not just an elaborate way to avoid actually writing. Procrastination in the name of inspiration. Uh huh, sure. But then I pulled out my old binder of Arylle things and there, tucked in the very back, were pictures I had clipped from magazines of the gowns that she wore, the way her hair hung, and even people who resembled Cor and her (without naming names, let’s just say that they were actors from a now-defunct soap opera). So I guess that this is just part of my process, and it happens to be fun as well.

-Melissa

Read more »

Posted in: characters,drawing,inspiration,writing

The American Labour System: the Anti-Art System?

First of all, I want to apologise for not posting last week's blog entry. It was a very busy week, and I was completely out of it.

What I wanted to discuss this evening is writing in programming and Web development.

I've been a novice computer geek for the last two to three years, so there is a lot that I still have yet to learn about the technology. But what I have learned is that the skills of a writer can be transferred over to programming and Web development. When I say "programming," I include software development. Software is just a type of program that performs a tool- or application-like function and therefore a specific kind of task. For example, word processing software performs writing and editing tasks of human language (as opposed to machine language).

Like stories, articles and poetry, programs and Websites are created with human language (mostly English). They are not merely constructed like computer hardware and so take a greater amount of creativity to write. However, unless you're writing a game program or such, they are not narrational. Websites are often created with html (hyper textual markup language) and programs are created using any program language from COBOL to JAVA.

So with the ongoing rapid advancement of computer technology and the demand for more software and Websites, you can say that unlike the fine arts such as painting and sculpture, and unlike the literary arts such as fiction and poetry writing, Web development and program writing has a high demand for us artists/creators in the market place.

Actually, I'm sorry to say, that's wrong. At least as far as traditional employed work goes.

There has been a huge decrease in the demand for program writers and Web creators at the private sector levels at least during the last decade. I have been told by career developers and have read that because many huge companies have been hiring their Web developers and program writers from outside of the U.S. by contract, the need for such professionals is very slim. Why do the huge companies look outside the country for these services? Because they save money, of course, which big business (corporatism in other words) comes down to. And because it comes down to saving on the costs of such creative services what does this tell us about our economy? The U.S. economy, particularly through the private sector, is anti-art! And in a society that is anti-art the system, in the U.S.'s case the corporate system, will do everything it can to annihilate something that it feels is too damn impractical for a given aspect of its economy, in this case the the U.S. labour force.

However, with the downfall of corporate globalism due to the (Great) Recession that we are slowly but surely rising out of, this may all change. Will corporations in our country be able to continue affording to even pay for program and Web development services from outside the country? With the poor economy effecting other countries around the world, will such services even be as accessible? Perhaps the big companies will have to start looking toward the digital creators who have been forced to go nomadic as far as employment goes, and so will have to look to the independent contractors for these services a lot more. Or, perhaps better yet, they will have to start hiring people in these professions permanently like they did back in the 1990's.

Maybe we can answer these questions more precisely next week.

Until then. . .

--STR

Read more »

Hurdles

If you had told me five years ago, while I was buried deep in a high school life I hated, that I would someday be delivering a three hour lecture, I would have probably run in terror. Nonetheless, that’s what I did last week and, in my opinion, I think I did a pretty decent job of it. True, I had been prepping for weeks. I read multiple books on the subject, sifted through a stack of articles, watched tapes, consulted professors. In the end, though, it all came together and if I stuttered through parts of it, my speech was mostly unobstructed.

Great, you may say, but what does this have to do with writing? Well see, for the past month of so, this lecture has been my life (not entirely true: I did have a couple of midterms in there to jazz things up a bit). Every spare moment I had was devoted to highlighting and post-it notes and scrapped outlines. I put in twelve-hour days at school, which I hadn’t done since the beloved tech weeks back in drama. I talked about Salvador Minuchin to anyone who would listen. And now it’s done.

I came home last Thursday night after a celebratory dinner with my boyfriend and collapsed in front of my desk, staring at the computer screen. My desktop was littered with versions of the powerpoint, stray articles, an occasional client write up. I cleared these away and stared at the aurora borealis image. It was only nine o’clock and I had no idea what to do with the next hour before I went to bed. What did I used to do with free time? Oh yeah, I would work on this story thing…

That settled it, to youtube I went. After a few minutes, I started twitching. There was a textbook next to me; surely I should be reading it. But no, I had already read the chapter for our next class. I had completed my observations for the week, prepared for the upcoming role play, and now the monstrous presentation was over. Around this point it occurred to me that I no longer know how to waste time.

I opened up my file hesitantly, the one called Aya’s Wings. I had left off in such an inconvenient place: Amarinne fighting against Karied’s flattery as Emins and Najerie return from their disastrous bout of equestrianism. Well, what happens next? Of course I knew; I knew all along. I began to write, a word or two at a time, as though afraid of picking up speed and not being able to stop. After about a page, I was drained, but I had written for the first time in weeks. I closed the file, fell into bed, and slept until the alarm went off at 5:30 to wake me up for work.

It was a little victory, but a victory all the same.

-Melissa

Read more »

Posted in: life,writing