Untangling Tales

The main reason I expect my music to make sense is because it has so many times helped me make sense of my world.

As a result there are times I get really disappointed (or maybe just annoyed) by those songs that don’t *match*.

For example, sometimes I trip over a song where content and emphasis don’t line up, or one that’s come to represent something that is actually not present in the song.

And then there are the poorly-done fantasies of the the music world, where I would have been willing to suspend disbelief for a good “story” (sound) but the internal logic is inconsistent.

Here’s what I mean.

I Will Always Love You is played at weddings, even though it’s about a relationship ending.

If I should stay
I would only be in your way

good-bye, please don’t cry
Cause we both know that I’m not
What you need

I Need a Hero presents as an anthem about a dearth of (or desire for) good men, but if you’re listening to the lyrics  it’s really about the impatience and demands of a woman.

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the morning light

A good clue was when I started flipping the lyrics around and realized there was no clean way to put this in a male POV— a song about what a good man is waiting for/wishing to find— without changing the character of the singer (Which I sort of did, and may share later).

Then there’s I Stand by Idina Menzel. An earnest, heartfelt song about, well, high ideals, I guess. I haven’t quite figured it out.

When you ask me, who I am:
What is my vision? And do I have a plan?
Where is my strength? Have I nothing to say?
I hear the words in my head, but I push them away.

I stand for the power to change,
I live for the perfect day.
I love till it hurts like crazy,
I hope for a hero to save me.
I stand for the strange and lonely,
I believe there’s a better place.
I don’t know if the sky is heaven,
But I pray anyway.

This isn’t nearly as iconic as the first two, but I include it because it’s a perfect example of something that affects me emotionally while offending my reason. (I use offense in a very mild way here.)

It is basically the theme song for my main character in the Lindorm Novel, which ties my feeling about the song and the character perhaps too closely together (I couldn’t find Linnea’s motivation for the longest time, either. Sometimes I still wonder).

The “offense” grows from recognizing the sincerity of the piece while feeling that sullied by its emptiness. It’s an anthem of our “believe enough and you can be sure its true” type of faith in the modern world. It is something I want to believe in, and am disappointed not to be able to embrace. It all sounds so good, but there’s no real hope, and anyone looking for clearer answers is told, I don’t know– I’m still waiting too!

What songs don’t make sense to you?

It’s a good thing I’m not in the habit of buying new books whenever I want them, since I’ve got two new ones on my wishlist now (more, actually, but today I’m talking about:).

Snoop and Imagine Dragons.

Snoop, by Sam Gosling, is a fascinating book about using *stuff* to explore personality and how personality might be read by observing an environment. It uses the “Big Five” model of personality-typing (where I read– like most people would expect– as an extrovert), and uses particular environmental cues connected to those 5 elements.

I am loving the contrast between this typing and the Myers-Briggs model, since they really tell me very different things about myself and others.  If I still like OCEAN after finishing this book I might big-five type my main characters to see the differences.

For example, just as I am an introvert according to the M-B definition and extrovert under OCEAN, I think my MC is the reverse.

One way I’m trying to say it so far is M-B is pretty good at describing behavior (especially putting it in context with a whole individual) while I’m guessing OCEAN is more useful at predicting behavior– though both can do either, of course.

The other book is what convinced me I could never go 100% to any of the digital platforms, though I’ve convinced myself that for non-picture books I’d actually like an e-reader: if I’m buying new anyway.

• the book takes up less space physically
• is usually cheaper (price would determine format choice) and
• is easily searchable
  • Most of why I hang onto a book is because I *need* some perfect line or example at my fingertips.
    • this, BTW, is what is most traumatic about having all my book collection packed away.

My favorite part of Snoop so far was in the first chapter, where the author categorized the types of stuff that fill our spaces.

• Identity Claims
  • others-directed (See: this is who/what I am)
  • self-directed (Remember: this is who/what I want to be)
• Feeling Regulators
  • things that exist “not to send messages about our identities but specifically to manage our emotions and thoughts.”
• Behavioral Residue (*Love* this label. Very convicting for me)
  • What is seen because of the way you live and the choices you make.

I’m also enjoying the exploration of what makes a relationship deeper (or deepen).  hint: it’s not information exchange.  But for my current situation (where I’m living in someone else’s house– I just don’t know whose, yet), it helped me understand why I feel less settled, despite my contentment with whatever.

Beginning to think of these three elements, especially in ratio to one another, gave a bit of definition to what I’m feeling about my home.

When I prepped the house, emptied it to a showing (neutral) state, I expected to surrender the first segment– Identity Claims.  It wasn’t that important to me anyway, since visits would be about the house, not me. (Pshaw, I don’t even exist!)

What I wasn’t aware of was the “Regulating” category. Turns out books and music are HUGE regulating factors for me. And with the shift I lost both: books packed away and computers in the back room, so the music system was gone as well.

The last three weeks have involved larger and larger trips from the library (along with some buying) and an evolution of mobile music (I’ve lost my iPod Nano!) that has, I think, settled at my laptop in the kitchen with a new Pandora station.

But it’s only been with the reading of this chapter that I understand my lengthy agitation. (One that I hope is now over!)

~ ~ ~

For something completely different, please consider

I wish I could show you some images from inside the book.  They are just amazing. All this wonderful interplay between line, color and texture. (And I’m not any sort of visual artist!)

Books like these convince me I could never go 100% digital, because *what* could replace my child(ren)’s experience of studying for minutes at a time a complex image like that?  Because that’s what they do when the text is being read: exploring the picture, discovering details.

This is a book I want in my collection!

And you can believe I’ve already reserved this illustrator’s other books from my library. I am eager to see more of her work!

The book itself is a very respectable survey of dragons and lore– including stories well-summarized. The Eastern dragons may be said to be favored (commentary emphasizes they’re not-evil), but their depiction is naked enough to show them as no more kind or caring.

This was meaningful to me mainly because I like using them in discussions of dispassionate, elemental forces.

Yeah, I do that. Weird?

Anyway, I am trying to hold off on buying new books right now (at least, when they’re not inexpensive…), so I’m thankful for our library right now. It’s the patch on a big hole in my life.

One place I believe we discover identity is in the cultural shorthand we share with those similar to us; the stories we have in common.  This can be movies, literature, shared experience and even the Bible– if you have that in common.

For example, in this odd season I find myself in, I’m finding it easier to explain to Biblically grounded people what’s going on.

And I don’t mean that as any species of slur to people who don’t know the Bible.

It is a running gag (mercifully petering out) in *Bones* to have one character make a cultural reference and the title character responds, “I don’t know what that means.”

In the 3rd season someone compared the latest antagonist to the Sith (Everybody here knows Star Wars, right?) And the point: A master and an apprentice, there can never be more than two, which one are we dealing with? was communicated that simply and succinctly.

If you got the reference.

This is one advantage of a shared culture: efficiency.

(more…)

I strained my voice yesterday. That used to be a lot harder to do.

I was talking with two other ladies at an indoor playground with forced-air heat. (Read: loud with happy children & other noise). With barely 18″ between us we still had to work to converse.

But it was lovely, talking with two women of similar intensity and confidence.  The whole conversation was very balanced, constructive and encouraging.

~

But it reminded me that I function best in a small group of two or three. I’m basically wired to pull 1/3 to 1/2 of the conversation, and that inclination doesn’t always change as the group grows.

Yes. I know.  I’m getting better.

This basic tendency seems to affect my writing as well.  I’ve said before I have a massive cast, and sometimes loads are on the stage at once, but usually no more than 2-3 interact at a time.  Maybe 4 do, once.

This explains why I freeze up when the prospect of an “epic battle” crosses my radar.  I feel desperate as any soldier’s mother for peace-before-conflagration; largely because I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to put off a large-scale anything… (and I’m afraid of what writing about war would say about me).

There have been three distinct times in my Lindorm novel when the action seemed to be pulling toward a war.

I suppose I’ve watched too many fantasy-genre movies– that obligatory CGI massiveness really can impress itself on the psyche.

And each time my “fear of conflict” (HA!) has forced me to find a different and (I believe) more creative solution to get to the next stage.

I can safely say that natural wiring does not have to be a liability.

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!

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.

I have been thankful how easy it is not to stress over what’s (not) happening with my novel.

I have reached the conclusion that I cannot do the next/final clean-up piecemeal.  For the sake of continuity (and other issues I have identified with the text) I’ve decided I absolutely have to have a serious “work week” where I work the novel from start to finish.

So naturally I have to wonder am I just sick of it and happy to move on, since I’m not even talking about it any more.  Then I got to talk it a bit today with someone (I don’t meet many people in real life who want to hear me talk stories, so I was pleased to get a chance to talk about something interesting).

I explained a purposeful contrast between men (and how I tried to illustrate their differing character) by how they took care of a toddler:

Kennett, the “hero,” and a good man, carries his adopted son on his shoulders and remembers to stoop as he goes through a doorway.  Ivan, who wants to think of himself as a good man, scoops up a child on his way out the door and just *nails* the boy’s head on the lintel.
These are on opposite ends of the story, so I don’t know if anyone will notice the direct contrast.

But even though that kind of conversation used to set me back onto my novel in the next hour, I actually forgot about the story until this evening when I set down to try and update the family blog a bit.  I turned on Pandora and picked my “noveling” station (since that is not something I’ll play with the children around).

And, wow.  I am conditioned. (Yes I know I’ve mentioned this before.)

I was nearly in my writing trance before I realized I was going under.  I let myself listen to a couple songs before I decided I didn’t want to inoculate myself and switched stations.

But now I’m stoked and actually have to make myself go to bed.  It is a genuine relief that (it appears) at the right time I will be able to return with a relatively small transition.

But if I hold my breath, maybe the feeling will pass…

~

The NaNo forums are growing more active again as November approaches (and with it National Novel Writing Month).  I have only (as in, in the last 24-48 hours) found a measure of balance (this is without daily training sessions for the dog.  I vaguely regret now signing up for her class– but I prayed about it too…).

Add now my heart is in a flury of excitement over possibilities and delights.

I did update my status and proffer a title and synopsis, but (so far) that’s all the indulgence I’ve allowed myself.

I’m off to make fairy tutus now.  Maybe that (or the preperationless class tonight) will pull me back to reality.

But then there is that dear woman whose offered to watch the children twice a month for me to write…

On to the task at hand.

Hmmm, here’s the quick rundown:

• My kids have all started ballet.
  • Yes, even the 3-year-old boy, and no, he doesn’t think of it as a “girly” thing, it’s simply a kid thing since all the kids in his family are doing it.
• Winter has arrived (not quite in earnest, but enough that to choose a walk is an act of the will)
  • to take the dog out today I wore long-johns under my corduroys, two long-sleeve shirts under my sweater and a polar fleece jacket over all.
    • And I did not feel warm until about 45-minutes into my hour-long walk.
  • Yes, it gets a lot colder, but (as I love to say this time of year) 40-degrees is a lot colder in September than in February. Which is my way of saying, we all adapt.
• However, this is my first winter in 15 years or so that I’ve gone into cold weather without a layer of “insulation.”  I am still losing weight (almost 20lbs down since January, yippee!) and, yeah, I do feel colder.
  • But since I’ve always adjusted in the past, I imagine this winter can’t be a lot different…
• Also, I got two more scenes done on the novel– one of them a no-brainer (7th review of a 7th revision) and one of them hard: I just added it last round, so it was needy.
• Learning all sorts of new recipes, but haven’t decided yet how many are keepers (to put into regular rotation–assuming I have such a thing), or the best way to juggle both new and left-overs food.

So, all in all, nothing earth-shattering, or life-changing (though the ballet and the weight-loss both have the potential, I suppose), so you can see why I didn’t make mention of this sooner.  Even now I only take the time as a sort of warm-up.  I’m sitting with the children now (enjoying my illuminated keyboard and Pandora) as they go to sleep, bracing myself to jump back into the novel-revising.

I’ve stopped reading most of the writing blogs I follow.  The recurring theme is *dedication* in the form of priority to writing, which I used to Amen! with some vigor and now… I’m living a different life.

And it’s such a good life I can for no reason complain.

God is faithful, and if nothing else were true, that would be enough.