Untangling Tales

As long as it takes to get me rooted in a story (to no fault of the books!), I keep wondering if this fiction thing is really for me.

But then I feel so fed when I finally get the chance to finish something.

Today’s accomplishment was Waking Rose, the third of three Fairytale Novels I first mentioned back in February.

And yes, I will attempt to post reviews of these last two books. Here’s my review of the first: The Shadow of the Bear.

I have already put the fourth book by Regina Doman in my Amazon cart. Looking forward to purchasing it.

This lady has done what it is my heart’s cry to do: write about pure love, honor, relationships in the context of engaging action and even humor (!), through a lens/worldview that allows God his rightful place at the core of reality.

Should it please God (such a sweet phrase, and I’m sure it does), this is my ultimate goal in all my writing.

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?

So I’ve been looking for a shorthand/formula for m-o-n-t-h-s now, and finally sat down and created one out of the tales I constantly return to.  And it works!  Made it very clear which elements do and don’t belong in *this* novel.

I started by analyzing favorite Beauty and the Beast and Iron John variants, then compiled a structure/format that also fit other tales

• The Ebony Horse
• East of the Sun, West of the Moon
• The Lindorm King (of course)
• The Lady and the Lion
• “A Flowering Tree” (basically a pre-marital counseling session wrapped in a folktale. I might be able to write this novel in my 50s)

This covers pretty much all the complex tales I am drawn to, showing relationship development (usually in a nutshell), and allowing both the man and the woman to think and affect their “destinies.”

1. Opening state.  Usually there are some inherent qualities of the MC
   1. Birth; e.g. royalty, other significant parentage (optional)
   2. Attitude; which attitude depends on the needs of the story
2. Other intrudes
   1. Does M.C. notice?
   2. How does M.C.respond? Acceptance (in this model), but how?
      1. reluctantly?
      2. with fear?
      3. innocence/naivety?
3. Physical separation from the known
   1. Frequently this includes an emotional connection with a former stranger
   2. If the emotional connection is skipped/missed there are deeper regrets and pain in the next step
4. Physical separation from the new known
   1. Opportunity for character discovery- self and/or others
   2. Journey to return
      1. Sometimes a series of tasks/helpers to process
      2. often anguish of seeing things changed while gone
5. The closing FIND, usually with a final twist that is victory beyond mere achievement.

I like how this formula isn’t as complex as Campbell’s Journey of the Hero, and provided me with a structure to look at individual story lines for each major character.

I’ve not much liked how many steps there were to keep up with in the Hero’s journey, and how some authors feel it’s so central/clever that they’ll over-work a story to fit it.

And it always seemed a waste of time to “reject the call.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, behind the curve. Moving on.

This was my first (thorough) introduction to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, and I adored it.  And moved on with my life.

Last week I saw the DVD on my library’s shelf and watched it last night for the first time. Then went back and read the summary again. Still love it– the summary, not the story.

A few favorite bits:

• BELLA: We’re gonna be all right, pet cactus. We’re gonna be all right.
• The Lunchroom of Destiny
• EDWARD: I had to… go. Somewhere. For reasons totally unrelated to wanting to kill you.BELLA: Did you get contacts while you were somewhere? Last week your eyes were black, and this week they are golden melted topaz butterscotch.
• EDWARD: Do you honestly think I’m sorry I saved you from the Death Van? How could you think such a thing? NO YOU CAN’T SIT WITH US!
• CARLISLE: Bella, I’m so sorry… your father’s weird friend was killed by a feral plot point.
• The Part Where the Plot Shows Up (I’m laugh-coughing here!)
• EDWARD: So… waiting on Bella. With her dad. Who thinks I’m the reason she ran away from home. Awkward.

What I love about this writer is she says (basically) everything I wanted said (so I don’t have to write it!) and she even let me believe she enjoyed the book (I mean, why else would you re-read a book before you moved on in a series?).

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.

But wounds can fester. They can become infected, and then they infect others.

And then they can  change you because you haven’t merely cut your finger or bruised your knee. You’ve been wounded in your spirit, and that wound pierces deeply, painfully, sometimes permanently. As Proverbs 18:14 says, “The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?” When tough times or injuries come, we must be able to draw upon a reservoir of hope, faith, and self-confidence that God has stored up inside us through the love and encouragement of friends and family. If enemies, through cunning and cruelty, have plundered that reservoir, what will sustain us then?

Won’t God sustain us? Won’t He give us the grace we need? Don’t we find our hope and strength in Him? Won’t He get us through?

Absolutely. I wouldn’t be here today if God’s presence and grace were not ultimately provable.

But that’s the rub: To prove anything ultimately takes time and experience. You have to live it out for a while, sometimes a long while. A process is involved. Even now, in so many of our lives, there are issues to be resolved and wounds that have to be faced squarely, forgiven, and healed. Many of us adults have been carrying unhealed wounds since we were children.

Euthanasia has been defined as “mercy killing.”

What I was reminded of this week is that, for honest Christians at least, there can be no such thing.

Bible-believing Christians know that judgment comes after death, and how can hastening God’s judgment on an individual be mercy? We do not know their hearts, only what they’ve shown us. How can we know but God’s reason for allowing the suffering (and therefore, continued life) holds more mercy then throwing someone unready on the unavoidable Judgment?

Finally wrote another book review.

About the first of those books I wanted.

I’ve read two now, but with moving et.al. I’m feeling my own frailty, and the second book was too tenuous too long for me to be ready to spend the review time with it right now.

It was also good, and it was gratifying to see the writing mature from one book to the next, but… perhaps if you read them both you’ll understand what I mean.

Go. Find. Read.

Quite worth it.

It is really too bad that, while we recognize lapses in judgment or steadfastness in ourselves as merely circumstantial, we quickly assume similar lapses in others as character flaws.

Turn that around and you’ll understand why I stayed up until 2 a.m. finishing critiques for my new writing group. They don’t know me, so protestations about busyness are (at this point) excuses and not reasons.

I know how harshly I would want to judge them (Transform my gracelessness, Lord), and can’t bear my own censure– so I work late, uh, early.

The point of these meetings is feedback and interaction. If I can’t expect that of myself, how can I expect it of them?

Had a very effective talk with Becky last night.

It is such a relief to be able to talk about a story and have someone else have more than a clue what you’re talking about!

Several useful things were clarified. Among them, Lindorm is a *folktale* (duh.) not the next fantasy epic; so I can relax a bit about the ax (mallet) in the ceiling. My concerns about things “missing” are a bit misplaced.  Having a new category for fantasy work (basically, beyond *epic*) is very helpful.

Two of my favorite fantasies: The Seer and the Sword, along with its companion novel, The Healer’s Keep, are more what I need to keep in mind than, say, Eragon or Lord of the Rings. For that I’m on-track.

“We’ve” also decided it’s a character novel, which has solidified the structure as well.

I spent last night rebuilding the Table of Contents to cut and rearrange, before taking my two current versions of Despoiled (Chapter One) and melding them into a single opening chapter.

The “compromise” referenced in the title is this: Since we’re still trying to move (You know, get the house packed and on the market… long-term goals and all that ) I’ll limit myself to one chapter a night for the next several weeks.

I have 20 chapters that have two versions before I reach new (untouched this revision) material.  Those need to be gone through as I did the first chapter, keeping details of a particular timeline while incorporating the improved writing where possible.

I’m quite content with this arrangement, and thankful to keep pecking at the novel.  I know how to move slowly; I just want to keep moving.