Read everything you can.

Please excuse my absence; I am deep into editing the last half of my novel. Since I tend to write by reading from the beginning, even though I am writing the third, fourth, fifth chapter, the first half of my novel is well edited. At some point that becomes difficult though and I am now editing the 'less gone over' part of my book, so my writing here is more sporadic.

I am a reader. Set it in front of me and I will read it. But, when I began writing my youth fantasy novel, I was afraid to read any more fantasies, as I was afraid I would inadvertently steal from someone. Do not be afraid of that. It’s like they say, there is nothing new.

This Christmas, Gaffer gave me two Terry Pratchett books to read and I was hooked. Low and behold, the third one I picked up had a small section of something that is similar to a very important object in my work and that is when I decided that you do not need to worry about stealing from an author, when you are writing. What you need to do is learn from them.

I would be working on a sculpture, something new and dynamic no one has ever done before (I thought) and the very next issue of one of my Ceramic/Clay magazines would arrive, and there would be something very similar to what I was creating. In other words, everything has been done. You just have to find a way to do it in a unique way.

The art adage is “steal it, don’t borrow it.” This means to take an idea and do it in your own unique way. And, I think it is finally dawning on me that the more you read, even as you write, the more other authors will influence your writing in a good way.

With Pratchett, it’s the way he turns a phrase and the things he relates to other items that I would never think to do and yet it’s just brilliant. He is a master at the Simile and Metaphor.

With Rowling, it is the way she draws you into her world immediately and how you identify with her characters. I can get so lost in her books that I barely know what is going on around me.

So, read everything you can get your hands on, but only after your writing hours because that has to come first.

Wednesday's with Writer's Journal - Ideas

Okay, if you really want to get technical about this, it is Thursday. So shoot me! It has become more important to work on my edit than on my blog. This is a good thing and I am sure you will all understand.

With both the Journal, for January 2nd (still not going in order) and my edit in mind, the question for today is: Where do your ideas come from?

I think we all know that anything in our life can turn up in our writing. My current project was inspired by my grandson’s lives and the issue they deal with from their past home life. Prior to coming to live with us, these three boys were living in a radical home, were barely, or in the case of one, not home educated, they worked a man’s job from a young age and the abuse ranged from just plain weird to horrific.

In attempting to interest the thirteen year old into learning to read, I let him watch the first two Harry Potter movies. He loved them and he related to Harry. All those Dursley’s had their equivalent in his previous home. When he asked me to buy the third movie, I told him I would do so after we read the books. So, we set off on a journey to catch up. I would read a chapter at night and he would haltingly read a paragraph. He would often ask for a second chapter. He was enthralled with Harry's world. Three books letter and we purchased movie three. By the end of the series he was reading chapters.

I cannot take all the credit for this. He is a bright kid and the public school system worked hard to catch him up. But, watching these boys deal with all the educational and psychological issues they have, from their past life, is what is inspiring my book. Plus, okay, I admit it, I miss reading to him each evening.

The tv was turned off and everyone at home would listen. So, it was a nice family entertainment. I tried getting him involved in Terry Pratchett’s books but, he is on to sixteen year old entertainment now and cell phones and girls seem to take more of his time. His twenty-one year old brother loves them and got me reading them, it is just not the same.

I am way off topic here, as I tend to do when I talk about these boys. But, they are an inspiration for me.

Wednesday with the Writer's Journal - Lunch with an Author

Today’s Wednesday with the Writer’s Journal is from January 27th. I told you I was not going in order.

Which writer would you like to meet? And, since it is my dream, let us try "which to have lunch with?" I live near a small town with very few restaurants and even way fewer good ones. I went to Martinsville today, to take my mom to vote and we found the best Chinese restaurant I have ever eaten at. It was great. So, I'll take them there, or not.

Six months ago, i would have asked Stephen King. I think he is the greatest living author for characterization. Sorry, Mr. King, I am not a fan of your subject matter. I usually only read the first third of his book and lose myself in those fantastic characterizations. I would love to sit at lunch with him and have him describe the people around us. What a great class that would be.

I also have a few questions to ask J.K. Rowling. Namely, how did she keep it all straight?

Now, however, I would just have to say Terry Pratchett because I have this feeling that spending lunch with him would be much like reading one of his books. Since I have only started on the second one, with the great Turtle A'Tuin, this is what I am basing him on.

My reasoning goes like this: When I demonstrate portrait painting, the comment I hear most often is, “I don’t see those colors.” I bite my tongue before I can say, "Nah, Nah, Nah Nah Nah. Well, I do." Whether it is a function of my eyesight or my brain is unknown. I was finally diagnosed as having two eyes (gosh, that is a really good thing), however, they do not work together. When I was a wee little one, the doctor told me that I probably had double vision. I compensated for this by learning to use just one eye to see out of. Thus explaining the fact that my left eye will wander off, on its own, when I am tired. Thus, causing me to look a bit like Mad Eyed Moody.

It could also be an abnormal brain pattern, which I actually have. I have been hooked up to an EEG several times; enough so that I went to a planetarium with my head all wired up once. Those who went with me were less than impressed. Hey, I do not let anything stop me from enjoying the world.

Or, maybe I just see things others do not see. I do think that sometimes, when I will point out a pattern that looks exactly like a face to me and those around me give me that “There she goes again” look, that I do actually see the world a bit differently.

So, I think Terry Pratchett would be fascinating to spend an afternoon with. I imagine he jumps from subject to subject and that he must have such a wonderful view of the world. It would have to be a very long lunch, beause I am sure it would be full of laughs, and Chinese food.

Brains - all of them

Gaffer brought home two of Terry Pratchett's books this past summer and left them for me to read. I thought the first page of The Color of Magic was brilliant, but then I got bogged down by the made-up names.

Somehow my brain seems unable, at times, to wrap itself around foreign words. I did not study a foreign language until college, where they tried me in four different Spanish classes. The last Spanish teacherI had told me that I was speaking it perfectly. My reply was, "But, I don't know what I am saying."

I have finished The Color of Magic and am starting on The Light Fantastic, and I am now a huge Terry Pratchett fan. However, (head bent with shame/frustration/embarrassment) I have to admit that I have only, today, caught "Ankh Morpork," as in MORE-PORK. Geez, am I slow. I laughed out loud today when I finally got it. What a genius he is.

It makes me feel a century behind when I find a whole new world of books, conventions and genius. How did I go so long without discovering this? But, that does make it fun. There is always something new to discover around the corner.

Which brings me to the news I read today. At the end of 2007, Terry Pratchett announced that he has a rare form of early-onset Alzheiemer's, called posterior cortical atrophy. Posterior cortical atrophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

He feels there is still time to "kill the Demon" Terry Pratchett: I'm slipping away a bit at a time... and all I can do is watch it happen Mail Online and, as us baby boomers age we should all be fighting the same battle. It is not a shame to have. A person has not done anything to have it.

My uncle went in for surgery and came out with severe dementia; who stole knives from restaurants and was scared to death of men with beards. My aunt developed Alzheimer's slowly. This normally sour looking old lady, became quite a happy person, who told us we could go swim in the fish tank and that she had a pet spider, who had babies, on the track her privacy curtain slid on. I missed both of them, while they were here and still do. Was I ashamed of them? Never, not once.

So, that is my soap box for today. Should you have an extra $5.00 in this crashing stock market world, remember that this possibility can strike any of us or our loved ones and Donate to the Alzheimer's Association.

Is it good enough to make me cry?

Actually, the answer to my title is, "It doesn't take much." But, good paintings move people’s emotions. I have always been fascinated with Picasso’s Guernica and it’s agony of war. Good books have the same effect. They move me to experience their world.

I wish I did not cry so easily. It can get darn embarrassing actually. I cry over books and movies, parades and flags, babies and old people. I can see a little old stooped guy with saggy pants and my eyes fill with tears. Of course, it usually reminds me of my dad. I had to turn the Cancer telethon off last night because I was bawling too hard to watch it. Which was perhaps not the effect they hoped for? But then again, I have lost seven relatives and several friends to cancer, so there is that too.

And, that is the thing with a good book or a good movie or a good painting; they are all something to touch memories we have. They should open up our hearts, even if it is to some past pain. We need to identify with the protagonist and live the experience, feeling their emotions and let our own emotions out.

I have heard people who comment that they cannot feel what other people experience and I am sorry for them. The one person I know who has stated this a few times is an avid reader. I think he must miss an awful lot of the essence of a book when he cannot feel the emotion. I know he is a bear to watch a movie with as he likes to point out all the “things” that are not possible. I so want to say, “For crying out loud, this is fantasy. It’s a movie. It’s not life, just shut up and get lost in it, or just pretend.”

I may not be enjoying the made up words so much in Terry Pratchett’s “The Color of Magic”, but I sure do enjoy his world. It has its laws too but they do not intrude on the wonderful story. He takes you off on an adventure, where chests have legs and run away, cameras have little painters in them and giant turtles “with geological slowness” and "hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs” and “sea-sized eyes…crusted with reum and asteroid dust” live. Yes, I am wearing those lines out but I love them.

These are the items that move my emotions and memories. They help me visualize his world with things I can see, and even though I cannot see sea-sized eyes, I can see what they would look like.

Looking at Guernica, I can see the agony of a people being bombed out. Just as I can see the Star studded night sky dancing in VanGogh’s Starry Night. And, cry my eyes out when Dumbledore dies or when Harry is so bravely walking to his death. And, cry over the Ghost and Mrs. Muir, even though I have seen this movie more times than I can count.

I think of this each day as I do my final edit and go over each sentence. Is it good enough to make someone visualize this world? Is it good enough to make someone laugh, or cry? If not, is it necessary? If yes, reword it. If no, cut it.

Jump to page 123 and read

I was reading some older posts on writermorphosis today and she reminded me of an exercise to do. Grab the nearest book, jump to page 123, count down five sentences and post the next three. It is a neat exercise to see what others are reading and also one to take out a bite of your own book and see if those three lines stack up.

Gaffer boy, our son who is studying to be a Gaffer, has given me Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic to read. I would prefer to start a series with book one and I generally do not care for books with a ton of made up words. I have just started it, but he is quite a visual writer and I just love this line: "Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and astroid dust."

p. 123, "Codice of Chimeria killed the last one two hundred years ago. I don't know what we're seeing, but they aren't dragons."
"But they carried us up in the air!"

Susan Choi, "A Person of Interest" is a mystery I have not started yet, but it sits here waiting.

p. 123, "And to his surprise, rather than feeling bereft, he fairly hummed with contentment. For the first time in recent memory, perhaps for the first time since meeting Aileen, he had purpose, and peace. He had always loved a university campus in summer, the mysterious abandonment of the medieval city, with just a skeleton crew of damned souls left to meet his few needs: a single heavy-eyed stamper of books, a single sleepwalking ladler of gruel in the one cafeteria."

That last sentence means I will be starting it tomorrow. What a great visual. "skeleton crew of damned souls...single sleepwalking ladler of gruel..."

And, then there is Three Brothers in a Yellowwood Tree, by S. A. VanVleck
p. 123 of my manuscript:

"The crescent moon created a host of shadows as he watched a deer forage. White tail up in alarm, the deer ran deeper into the woods. Alex squinted to see what had frightened the animal when another creature moved into his view."

I am going to have to think on that. Is it enough of a word picture?