I intended to do an impromptu story here today, and afterwards to draft a flash fiction piece. My brain doesn't seem to want to go there today, though, and I'll have to respect that and move on.
The nice thing about writing flash is that it takes less than an hour to compose one, when I have an idea, and then another hour max to edit it later on. So for two hours max of my time, I get the satisfaction of finishing something.
The nice thing about working on a novel, though, is that when inspiration doesn't come to write a shorter piece, I can always continue slogging away at the novel, and I don't need to be inspired. Because I vaguely know what's going to happen, and because very little will probably survive in the final draft of whatever it is I write in a first draft (or a second or third at times), just putting down words with the aim of furthering the exposition of vague plot in head is making progress.
Blogging is progress too. It reinforces the appropriate brain-synapses towards furthering the efficiency of one's writer's template. In other words, when inspiration hits, the words to express the fantastic idea I have will flow all the better because of all this exercise in composing mundane sentences.
I finished a review for Tangent Online today, of Subterranean's Summer 2011 Special YA issue.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
On self-development of writing and MFAs
I've been pondering for several years now whether I should do an MFA program for creative writing. I remember I was even thinking about it the year I decided to go back and finish my law degree...I chose the law degree because it was the easier path at the time. I don't think I would have been a good fit for an MFA program back then, but I was an even worse fit for a law program.
This year, now that I'm finished having kids and my littlest one is going to be weaned soon (I HOPE) I finally thought it might be feasible and desirable to do a low-residency program in popular fiction/genre writing. There are only three such programs in the US, which makes comparisons considerably easier, and supposedly should make choices so as well: Seton Hill in Pennsylvania, Stone Coast in Maine, and Western State College of Colorado.
I was getting set to apply to Western's program, as it's the only one of the three that has just one residency per year--the last two weeks of July. I really don't want to fly to the US more than once a year both because my kids are still really little, and I HATE FLYING. But then...I started thinking that Stone Coast has the best reputation, and I think that even with 2X airfare/year it comes out cheaper than Western's, and its reviews are all positive. Western is a new program as of 2010 and thus it's not even possible to interview graduates yet to ask them how the program is. And reviews of its undergraduate experience are pretty negative.
You might sense some ambiguity in my opinions in the above. That's because I keep going back and forth between this or that option. What I concluded as of last night was that I do not want to do an MFA program. Here's why:
These are the benefits of an MFA program as I see them:
1. You become eligible to teach college-level classes
2. improve your writing
3. make contacts in the publishing field
4. community with writers in a lonely career
5. force you to produce by giving deadlines and making you commit
#1 is the only benefit that cannot be achieved outside of one of these programs (or a PhD program). It's moot for me because I'm not interested in teaching. #2, 3, and 4 can be achieved through online classes and groups such as the following which I am either doing or planning to try:
- UCLA extension writers' program: I can't report on it yet, but I'm enrolled in Novel Writing III starting this October. These classes seem to get very good reviews, better than the UC Berkeley extension courses in writing (of which I've tried two), and if this one turns out to be good, I could do Novel Writing III and IV indefinitely till my manuscript is finished.
- Candace Havens' workshops and writing courses: I've been in Candace Havens' free writing group for a little while and from what I can see, she is a really good teacher and coach. I'm planning to try her Comprehensive Writing Course after I've finished the UCLA extension course.
- Pam Casto's Flashfiction-W: I joined this group in June. It has about 40-50 members and requires one flash fiction piece submitted and four critiqued every month. The writers here tend to be more literary in style and many of them are published. The critiques here are very useful as many members don't shirk to tell you what needs improvement in a piece.
- FlashXer: I've been in this group since February. It has 20-30 members and requires one flash fiction piece submitted per week and one critique, although this requirement is loosely enforced--so long as one isn't lurking, one can stay. Because the moderator, Michael Kechula, is the most active critiquer and writer of new pieces (he will critique almost every submission, unless it crosses a line from R to X rated), what is submitted there tends to be what he reinforces--hence, less literary and more genre; minimalist and speculative are well received here. (Not that other types aren't welcome)
- Critters Writers Workshop: This is a free group good for critiquing novel chapters; so long as you are doing a critique a week more or less, you can put your mss in a queue and roughly a month after submission others will critique your piece. I've been in this group for 4? months and although I've still not felt ready to submit chapters of my novel, I've done lots of critiques and feel like I'm learning a lot based on the huge spectrum of styles I see.
***
There are many, many more groups, classes, and resources available on the Internet, along with lots of straight info on craft. I think the quality is variable and doing them not within the context of a larger MFA program requires much more vigilance and dedication to self-learning...but it can be done.
That said, the overwhelming benefit to choosing an independent route of developing one's writing is that those programs are really expensive, about $22K per year. And part of being a HAPPY writer as well as a good one is being balanced, and allowing other passions to be nurtured at the same time.
So these are some of the programs I'm interested in doing along those lines, things I would definitely not do if I did an MFA program:
- Esalen work-study program, particularly the one on Permaculture Design: April 15-May 3, cost around $1100 + airfare. Esalen is one of the most beautiful places on Earth in my opinion. Nothing beats sitting in their hot springs on the ocean cliffs, watching the waves, and their food is incredible. My two friends who did the work-study program had their lives and careers transformed by their experiences.
- Shamanic Yoga Training in Cusco, Peru: my editor friend Kiersten Johnson (who is helping me with my novel, btw) did this and it sounds amazing. July 30-Aug 27, cost $2400 + airfare.
- Earthbag building workshop in Pirenopolis, with a side trip to Abadiania to see John of God, probably July 2012, cost ~$800. There are actually a lot of earthbag workshops in Brazil but I'd like to visit Abadiania again too, and I have really good locational astrology lines near this area too.
That sounds a lot more fun. I could probably only do one of them per year but if I spent $45K in two years on writing development I wouldn't do any of them at all.
A final reason why I think maybe I shouldn't do any more formal schooling is that I think I have too many degrees as it is and I ought to have learned my lesson already that they don't do me much good. I try not to regret things in my life, but I confess I find very little value in my experience at Harvard Law (and the six tortured months of law practice I endured afterwards). Everything of value that I've learned has been through self-education and nontraditional routes (everything I knew about lawyering I learned from Nolo Press or by trading bodywork for mentoring from practicing lawyers, and the bulk of my Rolfing instruction came from reading Ed Maupin's A Dynamic Relation to Gravity Vol. 2 and being mentored by Art Riggs--then the rest, for both lawyering and Rolfing, was entirely just doing it) and if it ain't broke, why fix it by going back to an old model that never worked for me in the past?
This year, now that I'm finished having kids and my littlest one is going to be weaned soon (I HOPE) I finally thought it might be feasible and desirable to do a low-residency program in popular fiction/genre writing. There are only three such programs in the US, which makes comparisons considerably easier, and supposedly should make choices so as well: Seton Hill in Pennsylvania, Stone Coast in Maine, and Western State College of Colorado.
I was getting set to apply to Western's program, as it's the only one of the three that has just one residency per year--the last two weeks of July. I really don't want to fly to the US more than once a year both because my kids are still really little, and I HATE FLYING. But then...I started thinking that Stone Coast has the best reputation, and I think that even with 2X airfare/year it comes out cheaper than Western's, and its reviews are all positive. Western is a new program as of 2010 and thus it's not even possible to interview graduates yet to ask them how the program is. And reviews of its undergraduate experience are pretty negative.
You might sense some ambiguity in my opinions in the above. That's because I keep going back and forth between this or that option. What I concluded as of last night was that I do not want to do an MFA program. Here's why:
These are the benefits of an MFA program as I see them:
1. You become eligible to teach college-level classes
2. improve your writing
3. make contacts in the publishing field
4. community with writers in a lonely career
5. force you to produce by giving deadlines and making you commit
#1 is the only benefit that cannot be achieved outside of one of these programs (or a PhD program). It's moot for me because I'm not interested in teaching. #2, 3, and 4 can be achieved through online classes and groups such as the following which I am either doing or planning to try:
- UCLA extension writers' program: I can't report on it yet, but I'm enrolled in Novel Writing III starting this October. These classes seem to get very good reviews, better than the UC Berkeley extension courses in writing (of which I've tried two), and if this one turns out to be good, I could do Novel Writing III and IV indefinitely till my manuscript is finished.
- Candace Havens' workshops and writing courses: I've been in Candace Havens' free writing group for a little while and from what I can see, she is a really good teacher and coach. I'm planning to try her Comprehensive Writing Course after I've finished the UCLA extension course.
- Pam Casto's Flashfiction-W: I joined this group in June. It has about 40-50 members and requires one flash fiction piece submitted and four critiqued every month. The writers here tend to be more literary in style and many of them are published. The critiques here are very useful as many members don't shirk to tell you what needs improvement in a piece.
- FlashXer: I've been in this group since February. It has 20-30 members and requires one flash fiction piece submitted per week and one critique, although this requirement is loosely enforced--so long as one isn't lurking, one can stay. Because the moderator, Michael Kechula, is the most active critiquer and writer of new pieces (he will critique almost every submission, unless it crosses a line from R to X rated), what is submitted there tends to be what he reinforces--hence, less literary and more genre; minimalist and speculative are well received here. (Not that other types aren't welcome)
- Critters Writers Workshop: This is a free group good for critiquing novel chapters; so long as you are doing a critique a week more or less, you can put your mss in a queue and roughly a month after submission others will critique your piece. I've been in this group for 4? months and although I've still not felt ready to submit chapters of my novel, I've done lots of critiques and feel like I'm learning a lot based on the huge spectrum of styles I see.
***
There are many, many more groups, classes, and resources available on the Internet, along with lots of straight info on craft. I think the quality is variable and doing them not within the context of a larger MFA program requires much more vigilance and dedication to self-learning...but it can be done.
That said, the overwhelming benefit to choosing an independent route of developing one's writing is that those programs are really expensive, about $22K per year. And part of being a HAPPY writer as well as a good one is being balanced, and allowing other passions to be nurtured at the same time.
So these are some of the programs I'm interested in doing along those lines, things I would definitely not do if I did an MFA program:
- Esalen work-study program, particularly the one on Permaculture Design: April 15-May 3, cost around $1100 + airfare. Esalen is one of the most beautiful places on Earth in my opinion. Nothing beats sitting in their hot springs on the ocean cliffs, watching the waves, and their food is incredible. My two friends who did the work-study program had their lives and careers transformed by their experiences.
- Shamanic Yoga Training in Cusco, Peru: my editor friend Kiersten Johnson (who is helping me with my novel, btw) did this and it sounds amazing. July 30-Aug 27, cost $2400 + airfare.
- Earthbag building workshop in Pirenopolis, with a side trip to Abadiania to see John of God, probably July 2012, cost ~$800. There are actually a lot of earthbag workshops in Brazil but I'd like to visit Abadiania again too, and I have really good locational astrology lines near this area too.
That sounds a lot more fun. I could probably only do one of them per year but if I spent $45K in two years on writing development I wouldn't do any of them at all.
A final reason why I think maybe I shouldn't do any more formal schooling is that I think I have too many degrees as it is and I ought to have learned my lesson already that they don't do me much good. I try not to regret things in my life, but I confess I find very little value in my experience at Harvard Law (and the six tortured months of law practice I endured afterwards). Everything of value that I've learned has been through self-education and nontraditional routes (everything I knew about lawyering I learned from Nolo Press or by trading bodywork for mentoring from practicing lawyers, and the bulk of my Rolfing instruction came from reading Ed Maupin's A Dynamic Relation to Gravity Vol. 2 and being mentored by Art Riggs--then the rest, for both lawyering and Rolfing, was entirely just doing it) and if it ain't broke, why fix it by going back to an old model that never worked for me in the past?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Diet for the Soul
My 2nd-to-newest flash fiction story, "Diet for the Soul," is up at Garbled Transmissions!
The story was inspired by my weight gain in the recent months. I had become quite skinny during the fall & winter while I was in the US, because there it was easy to eat low-carb. Here in Brazil, I eat too many potatoes, yams, pao de queijo and torrada--the latter two made of polvilho, which is manioc root--another high-carb starchy "vegetable" like potatoes.
I was also thinking that the weight gain has to do with my getting more serious about writing. Aside from a few brief tortured attempts 6-8 or so years ago (see Steel Trap Pussy), I only started writing short fiction last February, and that was also about the time I started setting solid word count goals for my novel and trying to achieve them. It's all wonderful for my productivity, but it makes me sit in my chair far too many hours and even the daily yoga isn't enough to offset the sudden spike in being sedentary. I was thinking about how it seems like many professional writers are either overweight or have a heavy smoking habit--something about sitting at a computer all day stimulates oral fixations--snacking, or sucking on a cig.
Anyhow, it's all stuff to be vigilant about--no matter how much joy the writing brings, gotta stay balanced and keep checking in with the physical.
I have to confess that I haven't been meeting any word count goals for the last two weeks. I blame my almost two-year-old and my attempts to wean him, which are causing him to wake up earlier in the morning than I'd like, and being tired all day or tired because I've napped really put a damper on my brain-clarity. I also seem to be in a bit of a plot rut, so tonight I actually took out a notebook and a few of my favorite novels, and I listed their chapters and the progressions of their plots, and then I listed the three disasters that took place (more or less) leading to the climax. I think different synapses fire in the brain when working on the computer and working on paper...I almost never work on paper, so changing things up is always a nice idea.
Next on the attack plan is attempting to plot out the novel using the Snowflake Method. Because I tend to plot things out in outline form on the computer, and it gets a bit overwhelming. I suppose it's going to be overwhelming no matter what, but I'm hoping that if I try things a bit differently, it'll be enough to propel me out of my rut.
In other news, Dave Truesdale, Tangent Online's editor, sent me a link to my F&SF review being mentioned on the F&SF forum. It sort of made me break out into a nervous sweat. See, writing is really great for super-introverts except when one starts being pulled between the fear-born desire to have no one read anything I write, as then I'll never be judged for it, and wanting a large audience--which is born of the "Man is a social animal" idea in that self-awareness is difficult in a vacuum, and needs mirrors (audience) in order to evolve. Somehow it makes the confrontation with my own fears even more palpable when the writing I've done is judging the writing of others. Tangled webs, man, tangled webs and fun-house mirrors!
The story was inspired by my weight gain in the recent months. I had become quite skinny during the fall & winter while I was in the US, because there it was easy to eat low-carb. Here in Brazil, I eat too many potatoes, yams, pao de queijo and torrada--the latter two made of polvilho, which is manioc root--another high-carb starchy "vegetable" like potatoes.
I was also thinking that the weight gain has to do with my getting more serious about writing. Aside from a few brief tortured attempts 6-8 or so years ago (see Steel Trap Pussy), I only started writing short fiction last February, and that was also about the time I started setting solid word count goals for my novel and trying to achieve them. It's all wonderful for my productivity, but it makes me sit in my chair far too many hours and even the daily yoga isn't enough to offset the sudden spike in being sedentary. I was thinking about how it seems like many professional writers are either overweight or have a heavy smoking habit--something about sitting at a computer all day stimulates oral fixations--snacking, or sucking on a cig.
Anyhow, it's all stuff to be vigilant about--no matter how much joy the writing brings, gotta stay balanced and keep checking in with the physical.
I have to confess that I haven't been meeting any word count goals for the last two weeks. I blame my almost two-year-old and my attempts to wean him, which are causing him to wake up earlier in the morning than I'd like, and being tired all day or tired because I've napped really put a damper on my brain-clarity. I also seem to be in a bit of a plot rut, so tonight I actually took out a notebook and a few of my favorite novels, and I listed their chapters and the progressions of their plots, and then I listed the three disasters that took place (more or less) leading to the climax. I think different synapses fire in the brain when working on the computer and working on paper...I almost never work on paper, so changing things up is always a nice idea.
Next on the attack plan is attempting to plot out the novel using the Snowflake Method. Because I tend to plot things out in outline form on the computer, and it gets a bit overwhelming. I suppose it's going to be overwhelming no matter what, but I'm hoping that if I try things a bit differently, it'll be enough to propel me out of my rut.
In other news, Dave Truesdale, Tangent Online's editor, sent me a link to my F&SF review being mentioned on the F&SF forum. It sort of made me break out into a nervous sweat. See, writing is really great for super-introverts except when one starts being pulled between the fear-born desire to have no one read anything I write, as then I'll never be judged for it, and wanting a large audience--which is born of the "Man is a social animal" idea in that self-awareness is difficult in a vacuum, and needs mirrors (audience) in order to evolve. Somehow it makes the confrontation with my own fears even more palpable when the writing I've done is judging the writing of others. Tangled webs, man, tangled webs and fun-house mirrors!
Monday, August 22, 2011
Happy endings
One of the reasons why I've avoided reading short stories up until this year is because they tend to not have happily-ever-after endings, like novels more often do. Main characters die far too often at the end, or there's questions left unresolved that could go either way--usually south. It's harder for me to appreciate good writing when I feel shitty after reading it, and I just hate it when I get pulled in emotionally and then I keep thinking about the horrible thing that happened in the end.
I've started enjoying short stories more, even with the sad endings, but I still have a preference for the happy. They aren't realistic endings, but I appreciate the implausible feel-good moments more than the poetically just.
I just read Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings" here, which I thought was kind of funny, and points out that even when you get the happily ever after, the characters still die--so it's what happens before that point which is much more interesting.
Actually, Twilight manages to avoid that pitfall as the characters could conceivably be happily ever after for all eternity. Hmmm...
So true happy endings are simply good resting points after periods of growth. So here are a couple of true-life update stories with happy endings...
1. I was sick for the past couple days so not only did I fall off the Camp Nanowrimo wagon, I didn't work on my novel at all. I felt deep despair, I agonized, I ached. Then I woke up feeling better today and have plans to brainstorm plot some more and jump back in. Because at least five drafts are probably necessary to make a novel decent, so the first four times I write it, I have permission to write pure garbage.
2. I felt frustrated. Then I found out that my story, "Diet for the Soul," will be in the first issue of Garbled Transmissions! Although this ezine has a very small readership because it's new, it's also nice to be in a first issue because it's part of the tone-setting for fiction that comes after.
3. I've been doing a review of some stories that I really didn't like. But I felt good about this because only reading very good fiction all the time is discouraging.
Impromptu to come when brain is more functional.
I've started enjoying short stories more, even with the sad endings, but I still have a preference for the happy. They aren't realistic endings, but I appreciate the implausible feel-good moments more than the poetically just.
I just read Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings" here, which I thought was kind of funny, and points out that even when you get the happily ever after, the characters still die--so it's what happens before that point which is much more interesting.
Actually, Twilight manages to avoid that pitfall as the characters could conceivably be happily ever after for all eternity. Hmmm...
So true happy endings are simply good resting points after periods of growth. So here are a couple of true-life update stories with happy endings...
1. I was sick for the past couple days so not only did I fall off the Camp Nanowrimo wagon, I didn't work on my novel at all. I felt deep despair, I agonized, I ached. Then I woke up feeling better today and have plans to brainstorm plot some more and jump back in. Because at least five drafts are probably necessary to make a novel decent, so the first four times I write it, I have permission to write pure garbage.
2. I felt frustrated. Then I found out that my story, "Diet for the Soul," will be in the first issue of Garbled Transmissions! Although this ezine has a very small readership because it's new, it's also nice to be in a first issue because it's part of the tone-setting for fiction that comes after.
3. I've been doing a review of some stories that I really didn't like. But I felt good about this because only reading very good fiction all the time is discouraging.
Impromptu to come when brain is more functional.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
impromptu
I've not written a new flash fiction piece in two weeks. I don't know why I'm so stuck.
Well, I do kind of know why I'm stuck. The Internal Editor is kind of like yeast in the body. In small quantities, it's extremely helpful and necessary. But feed it sugar and toxins and it just becomes an out-of-control growth, going from inflammation to cancer! The "sugar/toxins" are simply all the tempting distractions of the day, plus feedback from the outside that makes me insecure or makes me proud--makes me anything other than a vessel for inspiration and flow. I've also been doing a lot of critiques and reviews lately, which is like healthy carbs--they still feed the yeast, even though they aren't as bad as the sugar and toxins.
Um, yeah, moving on...so here's another impromptu. Checking Seventh Sanctum for a topic:
During the story, a character eats something they haven't had in a while.
Little Red Riding Hood, who was no longer little and no longer wore her red riding hood, still couldn't avoid the name. The press, the stories that spread after her rather amazing incident with the Wolf, couldn't be avoided. She got a little money from interviews, but not enough to make her family cottage private enough to avoid the onlookers, the tourist bus that had her home as one of its designated stops.
She was a nervous wreck. She wished she could afford the plastic surgery to change her face, the fees too change her identity, her location, everything. But she got poorer and poorer. She tried to date, but men were only interested in her because of the sexual significance of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, or they were pedophiles and wanted her to wear her old riding hood, on dates and in bed.
She would have to go shopping for more food soon. How she dreaded going out! I need carb support, she thought. She gathered her last cup of flour, her last half-cup of sugar, her last egg. She made a small bannock, just like the one her mother had made for her to take to her Grandmother's house that fateful day.
She hadn't eaten cake in ten years. Immediately after The Incident with the wolf, the sight and smell of it made her sick. But now...time had passed, and she needed gluten and sugar NOW.
***************
Okay time's up! I hadn't decided what should happen when she eats the cake, anyhow. Sugar high? magic cake? date rape drug? On to other things.
Well, I do kind of know why I'm stuck. The Internal Editor is kind of like yeast in the body. In small quantities, it's extremely helpful and necessary. But feed it sugar and toxins and it just becomes an out-of-control growth, going from inflammation to cancer! The "sugar/toxins" are simply all the tempting distractions of the day, plus feedback from the outside that makes me insecure or makes me proud--makes me anything other than a vessel for inspiration and flow. I've also been doing a lot of critiques and reviews lately, which is like healthy carbs--they still feed the yeast, even though they aren't as bad as the sugar and toxins.
Um, yeah, moving on...so here's another impromptu. Checking Seventh Sanctum for a topic:
During the story, a character eats something they haven't had in a while.
Little Red Riding Hood, who was no longer little and no longer wore her red riding hood, still couldn't avoid the name. The press, the stories that spread after her rather amazing incident with the Wolf, couldn't be avoided. She got a little money from interviews, but not enough to make her family cottage private enough to avoid the onlookers, the tourist bus that had her home as one of its designated stops.
She was a nervous wreck. She wished she could afford the plastic surgery to change her face, the fees too change her identity, her location, everything. But she got poorer and poorer. She tried to date, but men were only interested in her because of the sexual significance of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, or they were pedophiles and wanted her to wear her old riding hood, on dates and in bed.
She would have to go shopping for more food soon. How she dreaded going out! I need carb support, she thought. She gathered her last cup of flour, her last half-cup of sugar, her last egg. She made a small bannock, just like the one her mother had made for her to take to her Grandmother's house that fateful day.
She hadn't eaten cake in ten years. Immediately after The Incident with the wolf, the sight and smell of it made her sick. But now...time had passed, and she needed gluten and sugar NOW.
***************
Okay time's up! I hadn't decided what should happen when she eats the cake, anyhow. Sugar high? magic cake? date rape drug? On to other things.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Writing and musing
My second review for Tangent Online, for the Sept/Oct issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, went up today!
So I was thinking about the concept of "invalidation" and my own vulnerabilities towards rejection, which is something every writer has to deal with A LOT. Even the ones who "make it" get lambasted by parts of the public, because no one can write something that everyone likes. So I started wondering, after reading a little about invalidation, if I had borderline personality disorder. It turns out I don't actually fit that description but I do fit the one for schizoid, and to a lesser degree, schizotypal. I don't consider myself as having a "disorder," as that's when the traits cause harm to oneself or others; I do definitely have a personality that resembles the ones described. Anyhow, I was thinking about how I'd also self-diagnosed myself as "schizoid" when I read Barbara Brennan's Hands of Light a while back. That led me to another article, one by a fellow named Philip Goddard on "The True Nature of 'The Dark Force' and its Interference and Attacks," as Goddard uses information from Brennan's five "types" to describe a progression of soul-formation through incarnations.
This article is fascinating and scary. It asserts that almost everything promoted by the New Age movement, and all the spiritual information we're fed from almost all sources--religious, channeled, or otherwise--is sent from the "dark force" of our own denied awareness, acting as a separator between us and our pure link to fundamental consciousness. Basically, it's ourselves who've gotten in our own way, creating "souls" of increasing bits of karma that derail us from a simple connection back to our source. He calls the soul a "dysfunctional or pathological manifestation," and those with the most awareness and inner freedom are those with no souls!
He says that a lot of the fringe elements of societies--the homeless, drug addicts, and mentally ill--are "no soul" people who came in and had many lost-soul fragments attached to them upon coming in--pieces of dysfunctional manifestations of other people.
I find this interesting because last year I read all of the Ceanne deRohan "Right Use of Will Books"--all except the last, which is out of print now. Those books explain the population explosion as there being many people in the world who aren't actually "people"--they don't have souls of their own from the original families born of God's original creation--they're just fragmented off of their parents' souls, whatever pieces the parent denied, in the same way as schizophrenics fragment off personalities within one body.
Well, DeRohan and Goddard are saying similar things (denial and "stories" to make ourselves comfortable and not face truth are generally not good for us) in pretty different ways--as DeRohan is still supporting the normal New Age view that souls are a good thing, and implying that "old souls" are superior--but they are both interesting to me because both views are so radically different from the regular stories out there. Both are kind of scary to me. But despite spending quite a lot of my attention for many years on all things psychic and related to energy work, I could never get a good sense of concepts like past lives, multiple dimensions, and Ascension. I've cobbled together my own spiritual cosmology and adjusted it so I would have a story to make sense of my world, but there are places where deep doubt and fears remain--where I wonder if I'm just dust, atoms bouncing off of each other to create this illusion that I exist. To constantly chip away at those doubts, my cosmology cannot remain static--new information needs to flow into it, from all my senses, otherwise it becomes something limiting of my perspective, a story that facilitates more denial and accumulation of karma, rather than a tool to help me grow.
I'm really rambling today. What, you might ask, is the connection between these ideas and my writing? Well, my novel is in many ways my own attempt to sublimate my personal cosmology into a more palatable metaphor than I am given by the vague unease with numerous offshoot "maybes" with which I coexist. Any interesting realization I have philosophically is bound to show up in the novel. The primary issue of a "schizoid" type is an "existential terror," and I hope that by the time this first novel is finished I'll have taken a few steps towards easing that deep fear.
So I was thinking about the concept of "invalidation" and my own vulnerabilities towards rejection, which is something every writer has to deal with A LOT. Even the ones who "make it" get lambasted by parts of the public, because no one can write something that everyone likes. So I started wondering, after reading a little about invalidation, if I had borderline personality disorder. It turns out I don't actually fit that description but I do fit the one for schizoid, and to a lesser degree, schizotypal. I don't consider myself as having a "disorder," as that's when the traits cause harm to oneself or others; I do definitely have a personality that resembles the ones described. Anyhow, I was thinking about how I'd also self-diagnosed myself as "schizoid" when I read Barbara Brennan's Hands of Light a while back. That led me to another article, one by a fellow named Philip Goddard on "The True Nature of 'The Dark Force' and its Interference and Attacks," as Goddard uses information from Brennan's five "types" to describe a progression of soul-formation through incarnations.
This article is fascinating and scary. It asserts that almost everything promoted by the New Age movement, and all the spiritual information we're fed from almost all sources--religious, channeled, or otherwise--is sent from the "dark force" of our own denied awareness, acting as a separator between us and our pure link to fundamental consciousness. Basically, it's ourselves who've gotten in our own way, creating "souls" of increasing bits of karma that derail us from a simple connection back to our source. He calls the soul a "dysfunctional or pathological manifestation," and those with the most awareness and inner freedom are those with no souls!
He says that a lot of the fringe elements of societies--the homeless, drug addicts, and mentally ill--are "no soul" people who came in and had many lost-soul fragments attached to them upon coming in--pieces of dysfunctional manifestations of other people.
I find this interesting because last year I read all of the Ceanne deRohan "Right Use of Will Books"--all except the last, which is out of print now. Those books explain the population explosion as there being many people in the world who aren't actually "people"--they don't have souls of their own from the original families born of God's original creation--they're just fragmented off of their parents' souls, whatever pieces the parent denied, in the same way as schizophrenics fragment off personalities within one body.
Well, DeRohan and Goddard are saying similar things (denial and "stories" to make ourselves comfortable and not face truth are generally not good for us) in pretty different ways--as DeRohan is still supporting the normal New Age view that souls are a good thing, and implying that "old souls" are superior--but they are both interesting to me because both views are so radically different from the regular stories out there. Both are kind of scary to me. But despite spending quite a lot of my attention for many years on all things psychic and related to energy work, I could never get a good sense of concepts like past lives, multiple dimensions, and Ascension. I've cobbled together my own spiritual cosmology and adjusted it so I would have a story to make sense of my world, but there are places where deep doubt and fears remain--where I wonder if I'm just dust, atoms bouncing off of each other to create this illusion that I exist. To constantly chip away at those doubts, my cosmology cannot remain static--new information needs to flow into it, from all my senses, otherwise it becomes something limiting of my perspective, a story that facilitates more denial and accumulation of karma, rather than a tool to help me grow.
I'm really rambling today. What, you might ask, is the connection between these ideas and my writing? Well, my novel is in many ways my own attempt to sublimate my personal cosmology into a more palatable metaphor than I am given by the vague unease with numerous offshoot "maybes" with which I coexist. Any interesting realization I have philosophically is bound to show up in the novel. The primary issue of a "schizoid" type is an "existential terror," and I hope that by the time this first novel is finished I'll have taken a few steps towards easing that deep fear.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Micro challenge and other goals
So I did the NYC Midnight Micro Challenge yesterday. My word was "tape" and I was limited to 100 characters, including spaces. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go on to the next level so I'm going to reveal my three entries:
*drum roll*
1. “I leave the rest of my property to—“ As a dozen faces leaned in, the tape ended, and chaos began.
2. Poo-tangled tape burst from her anus, modern art as stick-on decal. “Meow,” said the artist.
3. “Why is there tape on your neck?” She picked at it. “That tickles,” he giggled. His head fell off.
I was partial to #2, but gross tends to turn off 50% or more readers so, oh well. Good practice. Onwards...
I have to confess that I've given up on Camp Nanowrimo. I'm so ashamed, I'm not even going to put the link on the "Camp Nanowrimo." That means I'm about 1 for 6 of my Nanowrimos. The important thing, though, is that I'm still working on the novel every day, right?
I've come to a point in my novel that most everything new I'm writing is probably going to be dumped. This means I have to stop and organize my plot. I don't really like doing this because I'm more comfortable with details than big pictures. I decided to use the Hero's Journey to map out my story.
Looks pretty cool, eh? Now if only I knew what half the things on this chart meant.
*drum roll*
1. “I leave the rest of my property to—“ As a dozen faces leaned in, the tape ended, and chaos began.
2. Poo-tangled tape burst from her anus, modern art as stick-on decal. “Meow,” said the artist.
3. “Why is there tape on your neck?” She picked at it. “That tickles,” he giggled. His head fell off.
I was partial to #2, but gross tends to turn off 50% or more readers so, oh well. Good practice. Onwards...
I have to confess that I've given up on Camp Nanowrimo. I'm so ashamed, I'm not even going to put the link on the "Camp Nanowrimo." That means I'm about 1 for 6 of my Nanowrimos. The important thing, though, is that I'm still working on the novel every day, right?
I've come to a point in my novel that most everything new I'm writing is probably going to be dumped. This means I have to stop and organize my plot. I don't really like doing this because I'm more comfortable with details than big pictures. I decided to use the Hero's Journey to map out my story.
Looks pretty cool, eh? Now if only I knew what half the things on this chart meant.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Flash fiction micro challenge
Okay, so I signed up to do the Flash Fiction Micro Challenge this Thursday. The last time I signed up to do something writing-related that would only occur on a particular day, a truck hit some telephone cables and took out my Internet access for a week. Oddly enough, last night a truck hit another pole, but this time the cable didn't break so the connection has been off and on but is mostly on. Still...I wouldn't be surprised if it went off just in time for the challenge.
I actually haven't written "micro flash" or "Twitterfic" I guess it's called now, ever. The shortest piece I've done was for a contest at Fiftywordstories.com (which I didn't win). So this contest is supposed to be writing pieces 100 characters or less. Maybe I'll try an impromptu now, to warm up:
Going to a random word generator, my Twitterfic must include the word "covering."
1. Her pasties are covering, yet exposing each tit as a verse—sometimes rhyming, sometimes rhythmic.
2. I’m covering for Santa Claus, I said as I took a cookie. His reindeer are hungry.
3. I’m covering my face with my hands, ashamed that I can’t write Twitterfic. Giving up—wait—I did it!
I actually haven't written "micro flash" or "Twitterfic" I guess it's called now, ever. The shortest piece I've done was for a contest at Fiftywordstories.com (which I didn't win). So this contest is supposed to be writing pieces 100 characters or less. Maybe I'll try an impromptu now, to warm up:
Going to a random word generator, my Twitterfic must include the word "covering."
1. Her pasties are covering, yet exposing each tit as a verse—sometimes rhyming, sometimes rhythmic.
2. I’m covering for Santa Claus, I said as I took a cookie. His reindeer are hungry.
3. I’m covering my face with my hands, ashamed that I can’t write Twitterfic. Giving up—wait—I did it!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Drought relief
My drought of acceptances finally ended, and I’ll have my flash fiction story, “Bloody Mary,” published in October by State of Imagination. I like this e-journal—it’s attractive and lighthearted, doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, and its response times are consistent. One small difference between it and other similar e-zines is that with each story, it also publishes a blurb about the author’s inspiration for the story. The blurbs tend to be quite entertaining in and of themselves, so I thought it an excellent idea.
I’m on Day 7 of Camp Nanowrimo and, as usual, I hit an overwhelm point after a few days and start falling behind. I’ve been busy during the day with another writing project, though, so I have a good excuse. I joined the staff of Tangent Online as a reviewer—it’s an unpaid position, but with a bunch of people who are all attempting to be writers and to improve their craft by reading and reviewing quality work. Seeking out others with similar aspirations and struggles is becoming terribly important to me; I’ve got the loneliness of being a writer compounded by living in isolation, with a husband who is uninterested in my writing (no judgment on it; it’s simply not his world) and in a town where the most common pastimes are 1) television; and 2) standing outside and people-watching.
Anyhow, without being a reviewer for Tangent I can safely say that I’d never have read any of these stories, and might never have heard of these authors. I have my favorite authors and don’t branch out much, and before this year I never even liked reading short stories. I only started reading them because I started writing them. I feel a bit foolish now, but in a Christmas abundance sort of way, now that I’ve discovered a world of new authors whose work is so compelling it’s made me cry, tremble, and laugh as I’ve gone through some of these stories. I’ve been missing so much!
I’m still a long way from where I want to be as a writer, but it’s helping me to take on more projects, become more active in online groups, and to have a daily word count. I remind myself, when I feel sad about not finding kindred spirits in Lagoinha, and about not having a social life, that this was what I wanted—time and space to write. I won’t kick my higher self in the face by rejecting my own creation. But I won’t get down on myself either if I feel sad sometimes about what a part of me feels it has given up. Time will cycle around to fulfill my other wants and needs; I just need to be patient.
I’m on Day 7 of Camp Nanowrimo and, as usual, I hit an overwhelm point after a few days and start falling behind. I’ve been busy during the day with another writing project, though, so I have a good excuse. I joined the staff of Tangent Online as a reviewer—it’s an unpaid position, but with a bunch of people who are all attempting to be writers and to improve their craft by reading and reviewing quality work. Seeking out others with similar aspirations and struggles is becoming terribly important to me; I’ve got the loneliness of being a writer compounded by living in isolation, with a husband who is uninterested in my writing (no judgment on it; it’s simply not his world) and in a town where the most common pastimes are 1) television; and 2) standing outside and people-watching.
Anyhow, without being a reviewer for Tangent I can safely say that I’d never have read any of these stories, and might never have heard of these authors. I have my favorite authors and don’t branch out much, and before this year I never even liked reading short stories. I only started reading them because I started writing them. I feel a bit foolish now, but in a Christmas abundance sort of way, now that I’ve discovered a world of new authors whose work is so compelling it’s made me cry, tremble, and laugh as I’ve gone through some of these stories. I’ve been missing so much!
I’m still a long way from where I want to be as a writer, but it’s helping me to take on more projects, become more active in online groups, and to have a daily word count. I remind myself, when I feel sad about not finding kindred spirits in Lagoinha, and about not having a social life, that this was what I wanted—time and space to write. I won’t kick my higher self in the face by rejecting my own creation. But I won’t get down on myself either if I feel sad sometimes about what a part of me feels it has given up. Time will cycle around to fulfill my other wants and needs; I just need to be patient.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Pet peeve about story submissions
In the past, when we didn't have the Internet, stories had to be submitted through the mail. It was an expensive and inconvenient process involving printing out many copies of a story, preparing SASEs, and bringing them to the post office. Months later, if lucky, a response would arrive--usually a rejection with a couple of lines jotted on it.
I did that for a couple stories ten years ago. The experience was depressing.
Now that e-submissions are the rule rather than the exception, I've gotten spoiled. A month wait time seems to be the average. I far prefer submitting to places that tell you in a few days whether they want your piece or not. I love those zines!
My pet peeve is with places that, for many months, have responded to people within a couple days, and then suddenly for whatever reason, they start taking a month or two. I picked those places because they were fast...and then I sit here, twiddling my thumbs, as the average wait time passes and goes on and on...
Some people believe that if you query about a story's status, you will immediately be rejected. That did happen to me and it did turn out that my story had been eaten in cyberspace, but the editor gave it a quick read then and there and rejected it.
Now that I've complained, I feel better about it. An even better solution is to write another story and submit it somewhere.
It's 10:30 and I have another 1000 or so words to write for Camp Nanowrimo. Time to check e-mail one last time and turn off the Internet. I won't be back till it's done.
I did that for a couple stories ten years ago. The experience was depressing.
Now that e-submissions are the rule rather than the exception, I've gotten spoiled. A month wait time seems to be the average. I far prefer submitting to places that tell you in a few days whether they want your piece or not. I love those zines!
My pet peeve is with places that, for many months, have responded to people within a couple days, and then suddenly for whatever reason, they start taking a month or two. I picked those places because they were fast...and then I sit here, twiddling my thumbs, as the average wait time passes and goes on and on...
Some people believe that if you query about a story's status, you will immediately be rejected. That did happen to me and it did turn out that my story had been eaten in cyberspace, but the editor gave it a quick read then and there and rejected it.
Now that I've complained, I feel better about it. An even better solution is to write another story and submit it somewhere.
It's 10:30 and I have another 1000 or so words to write for Camp Nanowrimo. Time to check e-mail one last time and turn off the Internet. I won't be back till it's done.
I'm feeling really unmotivated to write
So, in order to create some positive public pressure, I'm going to state my goal for the next few hours:
I'm going to check my email one more time, and then I'm going to turn off my Internet connection and write 1,000 words. Only after I've completed that many will I turn the connection back on.
There!
UPDATE: It worked!
I'm going to check my email one more time, and then I'm going to turn off my Internet connection and write 1,000 words. Only after I've completed that many will I turn the connection back on.
There!
UPDATE: It worked!
Monday, August 1, 2011
My first review
My first review is up on Tangent Online! It's for Beneath Ceaseless Skies, an e-zine that publishes "literary adventure fantasy."
Hooray!
Hooray!
Goals check-in
Today I'm starting a new month of word count goals. To motivate myself slightly more, I've joined Camp Nanowrimo for August!
I was feeling somewhat proud of myself for writing about 35K words a month (somewhat derailed in July) the past three months, but then I read the blog of author Margaret Ronald, who talks about how 2000 words a day for her is "not so good," and a more normal daily word count is ~5000. Before, from perusing various author blogs, I had determined that 1000-2000K a day was a nice healthy goal. I suppose it still is, but an even healthier one would be 5000! And maybe if I start thinking about 5000, 2K or 3K will become easy.
So after August...or maybe in October, since in early Sept. we're going to take our first semi-big vacation ever at Iguassu Falls! I'll start doing 2500 a day.
Next topic. After two months of solid rejections for stories, and my brain turning to such mush all I could come up with were boring talking animal stories, I wrote two flash fiction stories I liked last week and submitted them both. Hooray!
And, broadening the palette of writing motivations, I've joined the staff of Tangent Online as an official reviewer. Hence my introduction to Margaret Ronald, who wrote a story in Beneath Ceaseless Skies that I reviewed. I'll link to that when it's up.
I was feeling somewhat proud of myself for writing about 35K words a month (somewhat derailed in July) the past three months, but then I read the blog of author Margaret Ronald, who talks about how 2000 words a day for her is "not so good," and a more normal daily word count is ~5000. Before, from perusing various author blogs, I had determined that 1000-2000K a day was a nice healthy goal. I suppose it still is, but an even healthier one would be 5000! And maybe if I start thinking about 5000, 2K or 3K will become easy.
So after August...or maybe in October, since in early Sept. we're going to take our first semi-big vacation ever at Iguassu Falls! I'll start doing 2500 a day.
Next topic. After two months of solid rejections for stories, and my brain turning to such mush all I could come up with were boring talking animal stories, I wrote two flash fiction stories I liked last week and submitted them both. Hooray!
And, broadening the palette of writing motivations, I've joined the staff of Tangent Online as an official reviewer. Hence my introduction to Margaret Ronald, who wrote a story in Beneath Ceaseless Skies that I reviewed. I'll link to that when it's up.
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