Archive for November 2010

« ManicDDaily home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Michele Bachmann, Nanowrimo Novel Writing, Practical Mathematics

November 10, 2010

Insisting on Credibility?

One of my hardest obstacles in writing fiction is credibility.  I get completely mired in questions of believability.    (You should have seen how I suffered over the talking dog in one book, till Pearl, my bichon, assured me that it really was okay.)

I have to constantly remind myself that I’m writing a story; that, in other words, it needs drama, to re-adjust the normal daily percentages of humdrum and startling.

I am trying to get over this tendency in my current nanowrimo novel.  (Why, for example, have one of my protagonists just leave a sketchy boyfriend, if, on the way to the door, he can grab her and tie her up?)

(Sigh, It’s hard.)  In the last couple of days, however, I’ve encountered a new teacher:  Michele Bachmann!

Obama’s trip to India, she proclaims, wild- and wide-eyed, is costing taxpayers $200 million a day!  (Maybe, she goes on, he should consider videoconferencing.)

I wondered how she could believe what she was saying.  But then it occurred to me that rather than illustrating the art of fiction, Bachmann might truly be an illustration of the deterioration in practical mathematics.

Which brings me to my  father-in-law;  he is about to be 100 years old.  One of his many admirable qualities is a strong grasp of the mathematical properties of the physical world–he is an incredible judge of distances, surface areas, cubic footage, weight, density, and all the combinations of the above.  When he says 120 square feet or 13 fluid ounces, he knows exactly what he’s talking about.  Part of his skill at estimation results from growing up in a time where this kind of physical understanding was included in one’s education, part may result from a preternatural cleverness–whatever the reason, the ability to make reliable estimates seems to have declined in the modern world (and not just among contractors.)   This decline has in turn led to a gullibility about numbers.  People who don’t bother, or can’t, estimate realistically, readily accept all kinds of crazy figures.

And now we have Michele Bachmann!  Mistress of the Art of fiction?  Drama queen?  Mathematical nitwit?

Categories: Nanowrimo, news, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Nanowrimo – Week 2 – Coasting Through the Bogs (Baths)

November 9, 2010

Would-be Coasting (Notice Book Is Read Rather Than Written)

Nanowrimo organizers warn that the second week of Nanowrimo is especially hard, the exuberance of the first week draining, the adrenalin of the oncoming finish not quite kicking in.

I figured these warnings didn’t apply to me;  after all. my first week wasn’t exactly exuberant.  No, now that I finally had my story, I would coast.

But when I got home from work last night, I had all kinds of non-coasting activities to attend do.

An idea for a blog!  Sure, I wasn’t going to actually write one, but get Pearl to help me.  That shouldn’t take long.  (Ahem.)

Then, well, I should really keep on exercising.  Since country music figures in the novel, I’d dance!  To Dolly Parton!  (Downloading some was a snap.)

OMG–look at you, Pearl!   Yes, it’s a bit cold tonight, but it’s not getting warmer.

Bathwater was run.  No point in a bath without a trim.

Then (I’m not completely heartless) came an hour of holding a shivering Pearl in a down parker next to a heater.

It was getting very late now, and I realized that the time for coasting was sliding down a very slippery slope.)

I would take my notebook into the bath.  (This is one of the best features of sore computer eyes.)

Oops, had to clean the tub.

Okay, so, I told myself, if you are not going to coast, you can at least be workmanlike.  (It’s true that maybe the bath is not the most workmanlike writing studio, but I did have an extra towel handy.)

I set down to writing the scene I had in mind.  Only the country music had put a bunch of other scenes in my mind.  Scenes from further along.

I set down to writing the scene that was supposed to come next.  Only I just couldn’t bear to write that scene–a kind of dinner party–and jumped straight to the after-party late night confrontation between an ancillary villain and one of my female protagonists.  I was going to fit some good (ancillary) character to help her out, not because I felt the young woman needed to be helped so much but because I had a great idea for a snipy kind of line that one of these ancillary characters might use against the villain.  (It involved the Dia Foundation!)

And finally set pen to page.  Only, as I wrote the scene, the dialogue was incredibly sweet, too sweet for the villain.

A couple pages in, I converted him to to one of my male protagonists. an important good guy.   (Who, unfortunately, would not refer to Dia.)

Oh well.

In the meantime, Pearl parked under the down parka, having had enough of Week 2.

And it's only Monday!

Categories: elephants, Nanowrimo, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Doing Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) Off the Computer – Writing by hand…errr… paw…

November 8, 2010

 

 

It can be hard to write in a notebook, once you've gotten used to a computer.

But it really can be done if you put your mind to it,

and sink in your teeth.

Categories: dog, Nanowrimo
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Legally Blonde- Legally Brunette? Palin and Popular Culture

November 7, 2010

Legally Brunette?

Taking a brief break from Nanowrimo with some thoughts re the mid-term election and the seeming ascendency of Sarah Palin.   (I say, seeming ascendency because the failure of Palin-picks, Joe Miller in Alaska, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, would indicate some question about Palin’s  influence.)

Commentators have given all kinds of reasons for the “tsunami” of Republican/Tea Party victories: Obama’s failure to communicate, resistance to health care legislation, a still-faltering economy.

To me, part of the appeal of Palin and certain Republicans, and the corresponding disaffection from Obama, comes from the popularity of a “Legally Blonde” approach to the world; the triumph of the cutesy outsider over the elitist professorial.

Now I liked Legally Blonde as much as the next person.  (As an unlikely blonde female matriculant at an Ivy League law school, who roomed with a top-notch though even more unlikely blonde female matriculant, I probably liked the movie even more than the next person.)

But the movie’s immediate lessons that (i) a thorough knowledge of hair care, (ii) shoes, and (iii) sassy toe-tapping combined with (iv) a fervant belief in one’s client/cause are sure tools not only to success but to justice should not, in my view, be taken as perfect paradigms for modern governance.

Of course, good hair helps everything.   (I say this as a person who does not have it.  Thankfully, unlike certain politicians, a/k/a/ John Edwards, I don’t obsess over it. )

But there is a big tendency in popular culture to label any deliberate thoughtfulness, balancing and expertise, as narcissim, obfuscation, and venal elitism.  Such qualities are only truly acceptable in the fictional world if they are coupled with a great body or a hyperbolic ability to inflict corner-cutting violence; see e.g. Lizbeth Salander, Bones, Robert Downey as Sherlock Holmes, any of a whole host of movies I’ve not actually seen (due to my dislike of violence.)

To be fair to “Legally Blonde”, the movie does show Belle balancing big books on her stairmaster, but what ultimately saves the day is her knowledge of permanent waves and, oh yes, Pradas.

Great for the silver screen.

Categories: Obama, Sarah Palin
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Nanowrimo Eyes (i.e. Sore)

November 7, 2010

Oops!

All computer and more computer makes Jill have very sore eyes.

My nanowrimo collation of words (I don’t think it can be called a novel at this point) has passed the 18,000 mark (about 75 pages) but it is unfortunately what my mother-in-law would call a cold collation (a platter of cold slices–meat, cheese, tomato.)

In other words, there’s not much cooking yet.  (I started out with plenty of potboiling despair, but that was mainly venting in “fiction” and I don’t think I can actually use it.)

Still, there is, at least, a framework for characters and a story that I had never thought about before.  (Granted, anyone reading it may think:  aren’t these exactly like the characters in every single thing you write?  But I’ll reply, genuinely astonished, “really?”)

Although it is a mere framework, I comfort myself with thoughts of Obama’s health care legislation–that, at least, it’s something to hang things on–or from.  (Sorry, I’m a huge Obama fan, as followers know– what I mean is that at least it’s a start and that, sigh, you do what you can.)

Unfortunately, my right eye has now revolted.  (I type this wearing sunglasses.)

What is to be done?

A notebook and pen truly are suitable alternatives to a computer.  Granted, most people (i.e. me) hate typing up their scratchings, but people have used these implements for a very long time, producing wonders.

Agh.

Categories: Nanowrimo, Uncategorized, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Blocking Nanowrimo Writer’s Block – Remembering old Soviet Bloc

November 6, 2010

For me, what is hardest about Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) is not doing the writing; it’s believing in the writing.

That’s not exactly right.   What’s hard to believe is that the writing will add up to something that will go out into the world and be read.

Partly this relates to a certain lack of confidence in my own ability to finish a project to its utmost finished state.  Although frankly, I have a fair amount of confidence in this area–I’ve written a few novels which at one point or another I believed to be in their utmost finished state.  (The only reason I began unraveling these books was that they didn’t seem to appeal to publishers in that state.)

Which brings me to the source of my true lack of confidence–the increasing awareness of the difficulty in getting projects out so that they are accessible and noticeable in our jam-packed, self-promotional, world.

This end piece (the difficulty in actually doing something with a novel, once written) can make it very difficult to write the novel.  Of course, this gloominess is an excuse, but it’s a true hindrance.

What to do about it?

The answers are obvious but worth writing down:  put the dispiriting out of your mind.  Focus on the endeavor itself.   Find satisfaction in the process.  And, importantly, remember (always) the possibility of the unexpected;  think of the Soviet Union!  Who really predicted–at the time– that it would end the way it did?

I’m not sure my inner novelist is very much like Gorbachev (kind of hope not),  and I’m not sure it’s positive to be inspired by collapses!  But hey, you have to work with what you’ve got.  Keep doing it.

Categories: Nanowrimo, Uncategorized, writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Working on Lappup…errr…

November 5, 2010

Working with....Lappup

Categories: dog, Nanowrimo
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Nano-Update – Falling Victim To The Martyred Selves

November 5, 2010

Falling Victim To the Martyred Self

Over 11,000 words and I don’t have a super clear story yet, though I have a (sort of) direction, and a sense of viable characters.

Needless to say that a lot of the first 10,000 words have not involved these characters.  The primary characters in those beginning forays were martyred versions of myself.  Even as I was writing about those saintly victims, I knew I could probably not use them.  It’s not just that self-pity seems kind of self-indulgent in print; martyred versions of one’s self tend to be very passive, i.e. because they are victims, they don’t tend to do much; people are just mean to them and they sigh.  Little happens.

All those words, however, did make me think of writing about a time, a place, and an activity that I would never have come up with on my own.  Now, the problem is carrying out.  I’ve only truly begun and already I’m getting tired.   Writing does require a certain energy, and I find that that energy gets dampened by a day at the office.  It takes a considerable amount of dancing, (this is where a huge, but very inexpensive, Fred Astaire album on iTunes comes in handy) to build it up again, and so, by the time I start writing, it is very late at night, if not early in the morning.   (All that web-surfing is also a big drain.)

Okay, okay, more self-pity!  I’m sorry!   (Self-pity also generates a certain kind of energy!!!!)

Glad for the week-end.

Categories: Nanowrimo, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Nanowrimo–Never Enough Time At The Computer

November 4, 2010

 

Especially If You Have To Share

Categories: dog, Nanowrimo, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Nanowrimo – Morning Update – What next?

November 4, 2010

 

Pearl More Enthusiastic Than I am

I’m past 10,000 words and still hoping that my unconscious will supply a story line –you know, one of those things with beginning, middle, and end.  As it is, scenes shift, and something happens inbetween the shifts (the unwritten part), but little in the scenes themselves.  Is it all going to be background?  Random moods?

Granted, my focus has been very mixed.   I just have to hope that my unconscious works best when no one (i.e. me) is watching it too closely.

I don’t truly believe that this is the way interesting novels are written.   I’m a planner.  But then I tell myself to just try.    What do I have to lose?  Why not?  Who cares?   What the F?   Etc. etc. etc.

I’m concerned that all these questions are really a cover for….what’s next?

Categories: dog, Nanowrimo, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »