Skip to main content

Writing Log 3-3-12

I wrote unexpectedly efficiently today. Due to scheduling issues, I got started later than is normal by nearly an hour. Yet here it is, 5 o'clock, and I'm writing my blog after updating my TimeGlider and mulling over the pacing of the story. I was expecting to be hammering away for another hour, yet I'm getting the distinct feeling that I should stop....and that I should keep going. It's kind of rough, to be honest. I don't know if I really want to go on, mostly because I postponed the consequences of what I wrote about last time (a character getting stabbed) by shifting to a different character for this chapter. But I can't keep the reader in too much suspense--if I don't shift back and deal with the stabbing, then it's going to feel like I'm just toying with the readers, and that's lame. I don't want that to happen.

Of course, I could go and write a flashback...but I'm not certain that I want to do that right now, since the scene that's cooking in my head is in a different place entirely. It's hard to write in less ambiguous terms than what I've said here, so, rather than spinning my wheels, I'll just move on to something else that I wanted to discuss.

I'm  taking a class on World War I right now from one of my favorite professors of history. The class is what gets me out of the house each Saturday, which is a good thing, since it gives me a secondary reason for coming down to UVU besides the urge to write. The thing is, the topics I learn about are extremely depressing (like, majorly depressing), and I get a little out of sorts. The scenes that I'm writing about are serious--I've yet to be able to write anything even approaching comedy in my stories--but they're of a different type of seriousness. So I'm having a hard time channeling that emotion that I get from studying history into my writing. One thing's for certain, however: I'm not writing Calistar correctly.

Calistar is a warrior. He grew up wanting to be in the Jajiini militia (their armed forces) and following in his older brother's footsteps by fighting for his god and his country. But along the way, something in him changed and eventually he became a pacifist--personally, not one that cared if others felt the same way. He just wanted to stop hurting others, despite the fact that he could do it so well.

My problem with Calistar is that he isn't a soldier who has all of the right characteristics. One of the things I've mentioned before is that Calistar's precursor was Victor from Tales from the Flame. Victor and Calistar share the ability to be fighters who want to give it up, though in Victor's case it's a little bit different, since he has magical powers that are driving him crazy and making him want to kill. At any rate, Cal made the active, conscious choice not to murder or hurt people any more, but his weakness that carried over from Victor was that he's always in a situation where violence is called for. While that serves my purposes in the story, it doesn't feel authentic.

Perhaps I need to indulge in a bit of imaginative suffering and go through the flashback of Calistar's first battle. I don't think that it affected him enough. I don't think he became the kind of disturbed individual that wars give us. My professor today pointed out that there are generational consequences for being exposed to war--domestic abuse from returned veterans on their families, the insanity of the men as they try to cope with being home again having seen what they have seen, and many more important, forgotten things. Cal doesn't operate that way. He's not struggling enough with the choice and the reality. He isn't feeling the pain of war as deeply as he should.

Then again, we're talking about modern war as opposed to medieval warfare. Perhaps there's a difference in how a soldier responds to seeing a shell turn his friend into a geyser of gore and dirt as opposed to how a soldier responds  to the feeling of his own sword driving through armor and grating against the ribs of his enemy. I don't know. But I worry that an ethical, moral person who knows that killing is wrong will have to face the consequences of choosing against what is right, and, having never done it, I won't be able to really express the problems and difficulties that derive thereby. Or maybe I'm just worrying over nothing.

Different Topic 

I'm having the most curious feeling about all this, though, that I'm going to go ahead and express, even though it sounds silly: I'm looking forward to doing revisions on this thing. I actually am...I can hardly wait to have the whole manuscript in my hands--even though I probably won't use the hard copy for my revisions--and knowing that I've put the ideas down. I'm not casting about for the next story and eager to see the end of this one. In fact, I think I might be trying to add complications to the story just so that I can keep going on it and not have it end. (I'm fighting the impulse.)

This leads me to another possibility, one that I may have mentioned in the last 20 logs or so, but I can't remember if I have: I think this book is good enough. Not in its present form, obviously, since there's so much work yet to do. But I'm feeling more confident that this story will impress someone that they'll give me a shot. Perhaps that's egotism--probably is egotism, since I do seem to esteem my writing more than it warrants--but it's something that I really hope for.

Then I get a small measure of reality when I think about publishing this story: It's a character novel about a Poet. So I'm mixing poetry (not the world's most popular topic) and throwing it into a blender with politics, world building, and high fantasy locations. It doesn't really scream summer blockbuster. While I find it captivating and worthwhile, I'm unsure of how to pitch this thing so that people get excited about it. I mean, let's be honest: How many people are really thrilled to hear about the idea of poetry as a magic system in a fantasy world? How often do people stop and say, "I have a hankerin' for some Billy Collins and Robert Frost"? (Not that I'm as good as either of them--not by a long shot--they just happened to pop into mind.) It's pretty rare that poetry gets people going. Even though Poetry as a magic system is important, it isn't used to excess in the book, which is something that I can't decide if I should downplay or trump up.

But then I think of how interesting the book actually is. Obviously I'm biased, but I can look at my own writings and determine when the stories really have a lot going for them, and, in this case, I think that I do have something cooking that's worthwhile. I do. I just have to keep believing and hoping that someone feels the same way as I, and that we meet up somehow.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching in Utah

The Utah State Board of Education, in tandem with the state legislature, have a new answer to the shortage of Utah teachers: a bachelor's degree and a test are sufficient qualifications for being a teacher. I have some thoughts about this recent decision, but it requires some context. Additionally, this is a very  long read, so I don't blame you if you don't finish it. Well....maybe a little. But not enough to hurt our friendship. Probably. ARLs and Endorsements Teaching is a tricky career, and not all teachers start out wanting to be in the classroom. Fortunately, there are alternatives for people to become licensed teachers who come from this camp. We have a handful of possibilities, but the two I want to focus on are ARLs (Alternative Routes to Licensure) and endorsements. Both already require the bachelor's degree as the minimum requirement, and since that doesn't change in the new law, we'll set that aside as a commonality. As additional context, h...

Dark Necessities

The second of my "music video essays", I'm exploring the single from Red Hot Chili Peppers' newest album, The Getaway , "Dark Necessities". As I did before, I'm posting the video and the lyrics here on the essay, and encourage you to watch and read along. In the case of the Peppers, it's always a good idea to have the lyrics handy, as the lead singer, Anthony Kiedis, has a tendency of mumbling and/or pronouncing words uniquely to create a particular effect--or he's super high, either possibility is there.  The Set Up Here's the video: And here are the lyrics : Coming out to the light of day We got many moons than a deeper place So I keep an eye on the shadow's smile To see what it has to say You and I both know Everything must go away Ah, what do you say? Spinning off, head is on my heart It's like a bit of light and a touch of dark You got sneak attacked from the zodiac But I see your eyes spark Keep the breeze and go Blow...

Rage Against the Video Game Machine?

NOTE: If you haven't read the ' Foregrounding ' blog post or the one entitled ' Rough Draft ', please do that first. They're both short, but they matter a lot for what you're about to read. Okay. Done. Enjoy. Zach de la Rocha: "On truth devoured/Silent play in the shadow of power/A spectacle monopolized/The cameras eyes on choice disguised." Rage Against the Machine's single "Guerilla Radio" from their Battle of Los Angeles album is a reaction against the political circus and faux-choice presentations during the 2000 elections. The quote is not in full context (it is much more political than theoretical) here, but it provides a powerful starting block. A little bit of re-punctuation will help to clarify the thrust: "On truth devoured, silent play in the shadow of power [is] a spectacle [that] monopolized the cameras' eyes-on choice disguised." Line by line, we see parallels between how video games are perceived outside o...