Untangling Tales

Posted By Amy Jane on February 7, 2010

There, I said it.  It’s official.

This time I plan (at least at first) to do things completely differently.

Whereas last time I did NaNoWriMo, and wrote pretty much “by the seat of my pants” (though, to be honest I had the structure of the original tale to keep me on track), this time I’m attempting to plan before I write.

Jay bought me the Snowflake software when it was $20, so I’m experimenting with that.  I’m finding it’s hard for me to flesh out my characters before I’ve seen them in action, but I’m chipping away at it, wanting to give this method an honest go.

Seeing the issues I’m having with the Lindorm novel that’s currently wrapping up, I want to learn if I have fewer of those with more rigorous planning.  I’m also riding a bit closer to the original model (the folktale) than I thought I might.

Mainly because it’s easier to identify conflict and motivation when it’s less subtle.  Those girls, at least as far as I’ve painted/pegged them so far, are beyond my ken.

And I hope this story will be less complex then Lindorm.  But we’ll see.

I have the three brothers pegged in a very traditional manner, and I hope they will still be interesting for all that.

The princess is not your witty She-Ra that populate so many fantasies.  I suppose I am prosaic enough that I don’t trust the portrayal of women who are set forth as anomalies despite the fact that that world produced them.

*pah*  Foolishness.

This is not the popular heroine, if I may use my own awareness of popular heroines as a guide. I thoroughly dislike “strong” women who are strong primarily in contrariness, rather than in contribution. But I suppose this will come out in anything I write, whether my heroine is contrary or not.

What a writer is intellectually, morally, spiritually, emotionally will radiate through the work, like light on an overcast day in which there is no visible sun, so that all things appear illuminated equally.

–Joyce Carol Oates, from her essay Reading as a Writer

At this moment this feels like a very comforting surety.

I’m not sure if this is a true quote or something from my own mind, but If we must be hanged, let us be hanged for the truth is how I feel now. I don’t know how it will be taken, this Water novel, or the Lindorm one. But they will be true, as a story can be true, and I feel quietly comfortable in that.

Stepping off the cliff again.

It really is quite exciting to me, and I welcome your prayers.

Category: Water | 3 Comments »
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Posted By Amy Jane on February 3, 2010

I hope this is a one-shot deal…

But today I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out things like TwitterFeed, Bit.ly, Tweeting in general, and fun stuffs like Acsii art and HTML specialties.

I resisted setting up a second Twitter or Facebook account for specific “networking” or “marketing” (barely trusting myself to keep up with the new elements I am trying to understand now).

We are currently on day 10 of 21 of our scripted eating, and I think the lack of variety, along with excessive focus on the details, is messing with my thinking processes. i.e., I think I’m even more obsessed than usual with the little things over general reality.

Also discovered #YAlitchat on ning, and signed up because one of the blogs I visited today said they have online critique groups– but I haven’t found them yet, and my patience for on-line time is just about frayed out, so I’ve accepted not figuring this out today.

~ ~ ~

I started reading On Becoming a Novelist yesterday, and quickly decided I want my own copy.  He begins with an entirely different approach than most writing books I’ve read– that is, in attempting to answer the niggling question, “Am I really cut out for this?“

Well, instead of actually answering it, he paints a variety of portrait possibilities, and since I can see bits of myself in them, I feel affirmed and encouraged that my tendency is both natural and reasonable.

This is much easier to swallow than the idea that I am irreparably messed up, so I’m thankful to roll with it for now.

As for the novel: it is decidedly on hold until this special eating project is over.  I am at the stage where I need to think of the details in relation to the whole– and I am personally at the place where I will “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.”

Which I’m beginning to fear I’ve done already.  But those 30,000 words really did need to be cut!

Category: Developing novel, Personal | 3 Comments »
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Posted By Amy Jane on January 26, 2010

I’ve only finished one book this year (though I’ve made use of many).

The “season of transition/discovery” is still on, so, just as I last year abandoned the no-buying-books idea that sounded really good January 1st, so I’ve let go any pre-imagined idea of reading and writing this season.

I am doing both, but they are being done in a utilitarian way, not in any way that could be called orderly or disciplined.

But then, that’s almost redundant to say on this blog, since that seems to be the regular pattern and progression of my growth.

Anyway, on to the book, finished clear back on January 6.

~ ~ ~

This was a fascinating example of story overcoming its way of being told.

I, along with many of the snarky unpublished, have at times commented in a vague (or not-so-vague) way about the amateur quality of writing in certain popular books.

With this day I hope I am done with such comments, being, I believe, founded largely on an assumed standard that (while useful) is frequently ignored without great loss.

What I speak of in this book isn’t just an over use of adverbs, or (just) telling versus showing, but the wrestling between my wanting to know what happens next and feeling slowed in that finding by the sloppy-choppy means of presentation.

You might gather from the rhythm of this writing that the book was written in a rather archaic and stilted style. (It is one of my characteristics– I almost wrote flaws– to fall into the rhythm of language I’ve been nearest.)

This book is reprinted from a series of missionary stories that took place in the first millenium A.D., recounting the entrance of the gospel into heathen Europe (in this story’s case, Germany, in 703).

It is a painfully beautiful example of God as the perfect writer, calling together all those circumstances, “coincidences” and personalities that create the most satisfying story.  The one we’re too cynical to “allow” or believe before we know it’s true– though everything happens as our heart tells us it “should.”

The only example I dare give is a pagan perjuring himself by his god and own right hand.  He loses that hand– but not as soon or in the way I expected.  And still, as seems to be the message of the whole story, God’s gracious compassion “conquers all.”

There is not always peace for the good (”You will have suffering in this world.“) but God will not be mocked.  His will is accomplished (”Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”).

It needs re-written.  It need a broader audience.  But (in a manner that I think the ESV translators also use) there is something with the stilted delivery, in it’s very austerity and clunkiness, that lends authority to the telling.

If I ever attempt Script Frenzy it might be on this narrative. I think for our jaded world to embrace this story we’d have to have some intensely sincere performances.  But with those it could soar.

This is an effective example of God’s divine orchestration of the lives of kings, and when/if this gets brought to film, I pray it is every bit as solemn, amazing and believable as it deserves to be.

The story itself is about a Christian girl who agrees to marry the pagan ruler of their corner of Germany in order to prevent to expulsion of the other Christian missionaries and their work.  She is a faithful wife and Christian, steadfastly standing for the unadulterated gospel while enduring slander and fear.

It is surprisingly romantic (in both senses of the word) and my only excuse for not having a more coherent review is that I’d have to translate the story itself first.

As it stands the best I feel I can do is give a very exciting list of bullet points, and that hardly seems appropriate for a book review.

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Posted By Amy Jane on January 12, 2010

The point of folk/fairy tales isn’t to be  über-original, or show a balanced view of humans, in all their contradictions and shades of good and evil.

The point of these tales is to look at the good and the evil (as represented by the characters), and then to decide what to do with them.

Whether we will encounter evil in this life is not the question.  The question is, What will we do with the evil we find?  Will we fear it?  Flee it?  Fight it?  Surrender to it?

This is what these tales explore.

Leave the fine distinctions of good in the heart of goblins or evil wizards to those writing for a more “modern” purpose, and let the folk tales do what they’ve done for millennia: personify good and evil, and let us watch how they interact.

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Posted By Amy Jane on January 7, 2010

This is an interesting video by an interesting guy who seems to make things interesting simply by talking fast and on-point.

(I realized recently don’t follow any vlogs largely because this is one of two people I’ve seen able to do both.)

It is entitled, Adorable Puppy Explains Health Care Bill, and in it John makes the impending bill-to-be-reconciled sound quite reasonable. Even the bit about insurance becoming required.

He compares it to car insurance, “Because,” he states, with beautiful and irreducible logic, “your stupid decisions affect people I care about– like me.”

And this, beloved public, is the whole (fully justifiable) point of “legislating morality.”

The same woman who cries, “Keep your laws off my body!” might as well be prepared to hear, “Keep your hand out of my wallet,” because issues of morality (i.e., sin) really do cost us money as a society.

And that was even before activists were looking for public funding of abortion.

Category: Debates? | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Amy Jane on January 6, 2010

It was Sol Stien who advised the benefit/necessity of looking at one’s whole novel, then cutting the weakest chapter. This leaves the whole remaining work stronger and forces tighter writing.

Then you do it again.  And again. Until you literally cannot do it again without destroying the essence of the story.

Then, I suppose, you move on to doing the same with paragraphs.

My goal (like I said) is to get down another 20,000 words (if at all possible) because I have two scenes I want to experiment with adding (back) in.

And, yes, this number’s arbitrary.  Yes, I’m mostly interested in the book being “the best it can be” but it is useful to look at books I admire, with fully realized relationships and worlds and see that possible in less than 85,000.

There might be a couple holes– I’d want to re-read before naming names here on the blog, but I can’t imagine patching those would have to add 25% to the word-count.

Anyway, my hat’s in the ring.

And if any readers want to leave a vote for most-necessary-to-keep, or candidate best for cutting, I will certainly bring that under consideration.

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Posted By Amy Jane on January 5, 2010

Well, I’ve shot my chances of rising early tomorrow, but in a few hours I’ve made a to-do list that tightens my novel and gone from 115,442 words to 101,669.

That’s 54 pages in the Revision #8 cut bits file that I started about 9 p.m. tonight.

My apologies to you dears that are currently reading the longer version.You have my permission to abandon the effort.  Things are changing again.  For the better, I hope.

I’ve been very disciplined in many areas of my life these last several days, and this evening I just lost it: binged on junk food, read a bunch writing/editing blogs and dove into the novel with a knife between my teeth. And my Noveling Pandora station playing. Till Midnight.

My goal is to bring the word count down enough to let me fit a particular prologue with the new opening chapter (a variant of the current chapter 4).  It will most likely necessitate a mirrored postlude, which will need essentially to be crafted from scratch as it is the first-first thing I ever wrote on November 1, 2006.

I’ll probably never dare ask people to read this again, I change so substantially each time, but I know I can’t quit, so on I go.

Category: Developing novel | 4 Comments »
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Posted By Amy Jane on January 1, 2010

Currently Reading: The Princess Adelina (Sutter)

I’ll be trying something different with my mini-reviews this year, putting them in their own posts and tagging them with 2010 Books.  I had too many times last year when I wanted to reference a specific book and found the 2009 books page too big a fish to offer as one bite.

If a book does not incite curiosity or delight
there is no reason outside of requirement to read it.

I’ll not apologize for choosing anything not to finish (though I might offer my reasons).

Also new for 2010 is joining my husband (and our church, for that matter) in working through M’Cheyne’s bible-in-a-year reading plan.  I have never finished one of these, but it feels just a tiny bit like NaNoWriMo to plan/imagine doing something challenging in concert with a herd of people I know and love.

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Posted By Amy Jane on January 1, 2010

New things to be, to do, to try.

Reminders of things I’m not, I can’t, or am afraid of.

I mentioned a while back that my world has changed significantly in the last 6 months.

Isn’t it interesting (she said with an eye-roll) that no matter how much changes, there is still more to do.  But then, according to some people, if we got it all figured out we’d be done living.

I say I’d be willing to test that theory.

Since June I have:

• Achieved and maintained a healthy weight (nearly 3 months at goal, now).
• Learned loads of new recipes
• Established a baseline for homeschooling
• Begun extra-curricular activities for the children
• Learned that I am capable of discipline and a species of consistency
• Learned that I respond well to a clear plan

I have not:

• come up with any effective laundry system (we still need two weeks worth of clothes per person)
• established a regular “creative” time with the kids
• retained the motivation to follow one of my beautifully thoughtful schedules more than two days in a row
• ingrained how to spell RECIPE with only one ‘i’

~ ~ ~

Sitting on the edge of a new year I’m aching again to craft the perfect document that will for once keep me on-track through this hack at a new beginning.

I’d been toes-off-the-edge-of-the-diving-board several days when God brought me Sunday to this passage in Deuteronomy 7 :

¹⁷ “If you say to yourself, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I drive them out?’ ¹⁸ do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt: ¹⁹ the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, the strong hand and outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you fear. ²⁰ The LORD your God will also send the hornet against them until all the survivors and those hiding from you perish.  ²¹ Don’t be terrified of them, for the LORD your God, a great and awesome God, is among you. ²² The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to destroy them all at once; otherwise, the wild animals will become too numerous for you.  ²³ The LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their names under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you; you will annihilate them.”

God, on the power of his reputation, is assuring His people that nothing needs to intimidate them.

He has a plan that ends with all objects of intimidation being removed; but it’s not quickly, and not because He lacks the power.

²² The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to destroy them all at once; otherwise, the wild animals will become too numerous for you.

I think of all the faults, flaws and failings I want gone. NOW.

Then in the back of my mind is the story of the fellow who was freed, only to end up worse than before.

If (as I’ve tried in New Years past) I attempt too many changes at once I will, best case synario, fail at some rather than all.

At worst I cease to maintain even that which I’ve wrestled into reality.

I believe God was showing me his “order of operations” and generously sharing His reasons. I believe God promises victory over all that would make His people ineffective, but also that he’ll not give me “lands” faster than I can maintain them.

It’s a twist, I suppose, on the old line about God not giving us more than we can handle; I just never thought of freedom(s) in quite that way.

…The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.

Category: Advice, Observations | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Amy Jane on December 31, 2009

I’ve never thought before about how many times the year “begins” for me.

Of course there is January 1st.  But there is also my birthday, April 24th (the day snow is “guaranteed” to be gone from most usable surfaces), that magical moment in pre-spring when I feel the increase in daily light that makes the impossible happen.

There is also the arrival of summer and it’s continual light followed by the beginning of the school year (Where I’ve begun buying new calendars).

But this beginning is the beginning I share with my whole culture, and it is a different kind of beginning, one where everyone seems ready to self-analyze, and maybe even try something new.

In this way I aught to feel closer and more in tune with my fellow humans than at any other time in the year.

Though, one of the things I learned this year is that similarities shouldn’t be presumed upon to function oppositely of disagreements.

That is, just because disagreements automatically strain a relationship that doesn’t mean similarities will create warm-fuzzies.  (I have to be reminded of this, perhaps because I so rarely feel similar to anyone.)  There are those who gather a sense of identity in their perceived uniqueness, and so when I (in an effort to highlight similarity) essentially point-out how un-unique they are, they feel threatened.

And, honestly, I understand the feeling perfectly.  I have to fight the almost-jealousy myself at times, but it’s good for me (and good for them if they’ll let it be) to be reminded that none of us is as unique as we think we are.  After all, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” It get’s me away a little from a false or inaccurate sense of self-value.

Closer to the rest of humanity because analysis and new beginnings are the places I so often live.  I’m not so unique.

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