Two days ago was my 7th year anniversary, so, in honor of my spectacular wife, I wanted to record another piece of the history of Writ in Blood that points to how instrumental she is in my writing.
How I Write
See, writing when one has a full time job is something that I have never been able to do. I give a great deal of effort to wherever it is that I'm employed, and I really put a lot of my energy into the daily grind. I don't think that's unique in any way. I'm just pointing out that I rarely have the capacity or stamina to keep working beyond the typical hours of the work day.
So I need copious amounts (between 4 and 5 hours) of free time on Saturdays to get my writing done. Because I'm putting so much effort into wordsmithing, I can't really be distracted. Having two little boys of four and one and a half makes it, essentially, impossible to be around them and not get distracted. Jeremy will climb onto my lap and shove his adorable little face in front of mine, then insist on kisses until he gets as many as he wants. Peter will pester me with requests for glowing rectangles (watching TV, video games, playing with the iPad) until I either acquiesce or get frustrated. Writing with the boys around/conscious is asking for something that cannot nor ever can be.
Enter my lovely wife. Gayle takes the boys out (usually with her mother) to do the weekly shopping. She hauls them around from place to place as she does all of the requisite errand-running that's necessary to keep a household afloat. Straightforward analysis makes it pretty obvious that I'm not really pulling my weight when it comes to the house. I'm aware of that and, when I'm rich and famous off of my writing, it'll make it all okay, right? Machiavelli would think so...
Anyway, because Gayle so selflessly works with the kids, I'm able to selfishly work with my words, weaving stories that are mostly just my imagination run wild. (Seriously, have you ever thought about how weird it is that we pay people who are just writing down what the voices in their heads are saying? Yeah, it's pretty cool.) Much of the millions of words that I've drafted over the years (assuming that number is right) have come about because of this 'teamwork'--and by that I mean I get to do what I want to do and she has to do what has to be done.
It didn't take long before I discovered that, even with Gayle's sacrifice to help me with time so that I can write, I can't always have a productive day. While that's a given of any job, it really worries me, because I feel so guilty when I can't get things right. I've had more than one day where, despite all of my hard work, I can't actually use what I've written. Sometimes I end up watching a show on Netflix or playing video games, hoping to get over the funk. It usually doesn't help.
Lately, however, I've come across a new idea. It came from my time in my World War II class that I started this last May. I would come to UVU at 8:45 am and be there until 11:30 (or something like that). Being fully awake from the class (no sarcasm; that was one of the best classes that I've ever attended), I would go to the Burger King by University Mall and get the cheapest food I could for some consistent energy.* Then I'd return to the UVU library, take my favorite seat on the 4th floor, look out at the lake, the mountains, and the snake-like I-15 that plied its way through the foliage in front of me, and write. Using the WiFi, I would stream music to Grooveshark or Spotify and work my way through that day's story.
Using this method proved extremely useful for a couple of reasons. One was that I get anti-food when hunger interrupts my writing. I have so little time in which to do it, the last thing that I want to do is stop writing long enough to eat. That's lame. Starvation is also lame, so I often will scarf down something that gives my stomach something to work on while I work on the book. Still, it's a distraction and I don't like it. The trip to Burger King worked really well to stave off that problem. The second reason was that it put me in a very quiet place and let me work there. With a beautiful view in front of me (much prettier than the furnace closet, which is what's in front of my arm chair) and a peaceful atmosphere, I don't think I've had a bad writing day when I'm at UVU.
Because of that, I am (as I'm writing this) now in the UVU library and I have just finished over 4,000 words for one of my chapters, finishing it from top to bottom. I have been here for just over 4 hours, which fits into the typical paradigm I have of about 1,000 words an hour. While I skipped Burger King today (had a big breakfast--made by Gayle--instead), I'm feeling much more pleased with the work that I've done than I normally am. Despite the cost of driving the X number of miles from AF to UVU, I'm thinking that, unless there's weather problems, I'm going to do this from now on. I've tried other libraries (American Fork and Orem), but none has had the right touch. UVU continues to be the right choice for me and my career, it seems.
Road Trip to Cedar
The other way that Gayle has helped me (at least, the other way that I wanted to talk about today) came in the form of being an awesome sounding board for me and my ideas. Every summer, we take a trip down to Cedar City for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I, of course, love the Festival more than is strictly acceptable in our culture, but one thing that is less delightful is the trip down. It's 220 miles from Super 8 Cedar to my townhome, but knowing that doesn't shorten the time on the road.
Last year, in an effort to more pleasantly pass the time, I explained to Gayle my then-current conundrum with the story. I mentioned that poetry (or, as I creatively call it, Poetry) as a magic system was all well and good, but I didn't feel as though there was any sort of payment for the Poets who use it. I explained about the different countries, and how the Writ was stolen and thereby all of the Poetry of the country was slowly fading, but, at the same time, I didn't see what the big deal was about the magic system.
See, I'm in the Card school of thought that there must be a price paid for magic to work. In Harry Potter, it's the education you have to go through, as well as being cut off from Muggle society. In The Sword of Truth series, it's physical pain as well as learning how to use it. The payment types vary, but the end result is that you can't just have a magical system where things work magically and isn't that grand! It doesn't have the right weight to it, the right reality (as strange as that sounds), and, since this book was to be one that I put a lot of work into the characters, I had to have them feel as though their world was real and had a realistic weight.
Gayle knows all of this, of course. She knows all of my philosophies on writing--which is a wonder that we have anything to talk about most of the time. When I started to describe my problem, she helped me to brainstorm different ways of how the magic could work.
We talked the entire ride, and, at the end of the two hours, I had a new couple of rules about how the Poetry would work. Everyone can speak poems, of course, but a Poet is one who is trained on not only the Form (the elevated language, the prosody, the scansion, the meter, etc.) but also on a closing couplet. This additional piece (which I haven't written yet) activates a poem, moving it from just some random words into a Poem that has a specific Effect. The Effect is the magic--if one writes a Poem that imbues, say, a piece of metal with light, upon writing the closing couplet on the metal, it will illuminate. It uses the power of the Writ to become something that it couldn't have been otherwise.
This comes at a real price: scars and pain. A Poet's body is physically scarred when s/he writes Poetry. The scars take specific shapes and can appear anywhere on the body. Additionally, there is a real pain--much as though one were branded--that the Poet suffers. The more complex the Poem (and the larger the Effect) the more pain the Poet feels.
Additional rules cropped up through the conversation, but what I really want to document is how instrumental Gayle was (and is) in the way that I write. No one else cares enough about me to listen that closely to what's bothering me in my writing; no one else has the time with me to really let me explore all of the random ideas that crop up as a conversation is cooking. Without Gayle, I really wouldn't be able to write as well (assuming I do; I think I do) or as thoroughly as I can now.
Despite the fact that I feel like I'm a deadbeat husband, I am really grateful for Gayle and her willingness to put up with me--and, more than that, inspire me to write better than I could in any other way.
Thanks, Gayle. I love you.
*I did some calculations on the Burger King website. My little order--less than $5--gave me over 800 calories.
How I Write
See, writing when one has a full time job is something that I have never been able to do. I give a great deal of effort to wherever it is that I'm employed, and I really put a lot of my energy into the daily grind. I don't think that's unique in any way. I'm just pointing out that I rarely have the capacity or stamina to keep working beyond the typical hours of the work day.
So I need copious amounts (between 4 and 5 hours) of free time on Saturdays to get my writing done. Because I'm putting so much effort into wordsmithing, I can't really be distracted. Having two little boys of four and one and a half makes it, essentially, impossible to be around them and not get distracted. Jeremy will climb onto my lap and shove his adorable little face in front of mine, then insist on kisses until he gets as many as he wants. Peter will pester me with requests for glowing rectangles (watching TV, video games, playing with the iPad) until I either acquiesce or get frustrated. Writing with the boys around/conscious is asking for something that cannot nor ever can be.
Enter my lovely wife. Gayle takes the boys out (usually with her mother) to do the weekly shopping. She hauls them around from place to place as she does all of the requisite errand-running that's necessary to keep a household afloat. Straightforward analysis makes it pretty obvious that I'm not really pulling my weight when it comes to the house. I'm aware of that and, when I'm rich and famous off of my writing, it'll make it all okay, right? Machiavelli would think so...
Anyway, because Gayle so selflessly works with the kids, I'm able to selfishly work with my words, weaving stories that are mostly just my imagination run wild. (Seriously, have you ever thought about how weird it is that we pay people who are just writing down what the voices in their heads are saying? Yeah, it's pretty cool.) Much of the millions of words that I've drafted over the years (assuming that number is right) have come about because of this 'teamwork'--and by that I mean I get to do what I want to do and she has to do what has to be done.
It didn't take long before I discovered that, even with Gayle's sacrifice to help me with time so that I can write, I can't always have a productive day. While that's a given of any job, it really worries me, because I feel so guilty when I can't get things right. I've had more than one day where, despite all of my hard work, I can't actually use what I've written. Sometimes I end up watching a show on Netflix or playing video games, hoping to get over the funk. It usually doesn't help.
Lately, however, I've come across a new idea. It came from my time in my World War II class that I started this last May. I would come to UVU at 8:45 am and be there until 11:30 (or something like that). Being fully awake from the class (no sarcasm; that was one of the best classes that I've ever attended), I would go to the Burger King by University Mall and get the cheapest food I could for some consistent energy.* Then I'd return to the UVU library, take my favorite seat on the 4th floor, look out at the lake, the mountains, and the snake-like I-15 that plied its way through the foliage in front of me, and write. Using the WiFi, I would stream music to Grooveshark or Spotify and work my way through that day's story.
Using this method proved extremely useful for a couple of reasons. One was that I get anti-food when hunger interrupts my writing. I have so little time in which to do it, the last thing that I want to do is stop writing long enough to eat. That's lame. Starvation is also lame, so I often will scarf down something that gives my stomach something to work on while I work on the book. Still, it's a distraction and I don't like it. The trip to Burger King worked really well to stave off that problem. The second reason was that it put me in a very quiet place and let me work there. With a beautiful view in front of me (much prettier than the furnace closet, which is what's in front of my arm chair) and a peaceful atmosphere, I don't think I've had a bad writing day when I'm at UVU.
Because of that, I am (as I'm writing this) now in the UVU library and I have just finished over 4,000 words for one of my chapters, finishing it from top to bottom. I have been here for just over 4 hours, which fits into the typical paradigm I have of about 1,000 words an hour. While I skipped Burger King today (had a big breakfast--made by Gayle--instead), I'm feeling much more pleased with the work that I've done than I normally am. Despite the cost of driving the X number of miles from AF to UVU, I'm thinking that, unless there's weather problems, I'm going to do this from now on. I've tried other libraries (American Fork and Orem), but none has had the right touch. UVU continues to be the right choice for me and my career, it seems.
Road Trip to Cedar
The other way that Gayle has helped me (at least, the other way that I wanted to talk about today) came in the form of being an awesome sounding board for me and my ideas. Every summer, we take a trip down to Cedar City for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I, of course, love the Festival more than is strictly acceptable in our culture, but one thing that is less delightful is the trip down. It's 220 miles from Super 8 Cedar to my townhome, but knowing that doesn't shorten the time on the road.
Last year, in an effort to more pleasantly pass the time, I explained to Gayle my then-current conundrum with the story. I mentioned that poetry (or, as I creatively call it, Poetry) as a magic system was all well and good, but I didn't feel as though there was any sort of payment for the Poets who use it. I explained about the different countries, and how the Writ was stolen and thereby all of the Poetry of the country was slowly fading, but, at the same time, I didn't see what the big deal was about the magic system.
See, I'm in the Card school of thought that there must be a price paid for magic to work. In Harry Potter, it's the education you have to go through, as well as being cut off from Muggle society. In The Sword of Truth series, it's physical pain as well as learning how to use it. The payment types vary, but the end result is that you can't just have a magical system where things work magically and isn't that grand! It doesn't have the right weight to it, the right reality (as strange as that sounds), and, since this book was to be one that I put a lot of work into the characters, I had to have them feel as though their world was real and had a realistic weight.
Gayle knows all of this, of course. She knows all of my philosophies on writing--which is a wonder that we have anything to talk about most of the time. When I started to describe my problem, she helped me to brainstorm different ways of how the magic could work.
We talked the entire ride, and, at the end of the two hours, I had a new couple of rules about how the Poetry would work. Everyone can speak poems, of course, but a Poet is one who is trained on not only the Form (the elevated language, the prosody, the scansion, the meter, etc.) but also on a closing couplet. This additional piece (which I haven't written yet) activates a poem, moving it from just some random words into a Poem that has a specific Effect. The Effect is the magic--if one writes a Poem that imbues, say, a piece of metal with light, upon writing the closing couplet on the metal, it will illuminate. It uses the power of the Writ to become something that it couldn't have been otherwise.
This comes at a real price: scars and pain. A Poet's body is physically scarred when s/he writes Poetry. The scars take specific shapes and can appear anywhere on the body. Additionally, there is a real pain--much as though one were branded--that the Poet suffers. The more complex the Poem (and the larger the Effect) the more pain the Poet feels.
Additional rules cropped up through the conversation, but what I really want to document is how instrumental Gayle was (and is) in the way that I write. No one else cares enough about me to listen that closely to what's bothering me in my writing; no one else has the time with me to really let me explore all of the random ideas that crop up as a conversation is cooking. Without Gayle, I really wouldn't be able to write as well (assuming I do; I think I do) or as thoroughly as I can now.
Despite the fact that I feel like I'm a deadbeat husband, I am really grateful for Gayle and her willingness to put up with me--and, more than that, inspire me to write better than I could in any other way.
Thanks, Gayle. I love you.
*I did some calculations on the Burger King website. My little order--less than $5--gave me over 800 calories.
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