We got rain! Plus thunder and lightning. And high winds. Normally I'd just hang out inside enjoying it, but I had some early-morning errands and had to be out in it. Since I learned to drive so late in life, we have a running gag about me getting experience points and leveling up in the skill, and it's been a long time since I could feel the x.p. accruing, but I sure did today.
We have of course been in drought conditions, so the morning DJ at the community college station played a bunch of rain songs as an act of sympathetic magic, and took credit for how the downpour increased during that set. Anybody who didn't take an umbrella when they heard the thunder this morning, or who washed a car last night, will similarly be taking credit.
On the one hand, we know it's not so - that even if human action affected the weather, which it does not, any given umbrella, or clean windshield, or playlist is unlikely to have been the crucial one that achieved a critical mass of rain magic; especially in opposition to all the people committing small magics to make the rain hold off till they got safely to work.
On the other hand - we believe it. All of us. Who, in a drought-prone area, has not deliberately left an umbrella behind in hope of making it rain; or hauled an umbrella to a parade, picnic, or fireworks display in order to fend it off, in a rainy area?
It is almost impossible for us, as human beings, to accept that anything is truly outside of our control.
Yet most things are.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Idea Garage Sale: The Deer and the Dog
One of my bosses once told me about how a family member raised a fawn and it became running buddies with one of the dogs. They'd race each other on country roads.
They disappeared at about the same time.
Can you say "Disney movie?" But what constitutes a happy ending here - the deer and the dog living wild and independent lives together? The deer learning to be a deer and the dog coming home when his buddy's okay?
Disneyfication aside, this is not a story for someone without a profound knowledge of animals. The breed of dog and the species of deer (around here, that would be mule or whitetail) would be the first important questions to answer. A story told without the viewpoints of the dog and the deer would be limited in many ways, so being able to think like the animals, and translate those viewpoints into terms humans can understand, would be vital. When writing from an animal viewpoint, it is important to remember that animals are not stupid compared to humans - they merely deploy their brainpower in different areas. The processing power devoted to a dog's sense of smell is every bit as impressive as that devoted to literary criticism, and the rewards for the dog far more tangible and immediate. The author would have to decide early how much to anthropomorphize the animals (a certain amount is inevitable), and whether to give both viewpoints equal time, or to choose one animal as the protagonist.
Then you'd want to know about the family they were raised in - why did they raise an orphan deer? There's all kinds of reasons not to. City folk get sentimental about them, but anyone who lives in the country long will come to regard them as "hooved napalm." Deer have numerous symbolic roles in our society; deer-hunting is an important cultural activity in rural areas; attitudes toward hunting, and the assumptions hunters and non-hunters make about each other, can stand-in for some of the most bitter, vindictive divisions in early 21st-century American society. These issues are too big to ignore, but could easily overwhelm the story, even if the author is trying to be even-handed. If the protagonists are the animals, these matters must be de-emphasized; but if dog, deer, and some member of their human household (presumably a child) all get viewpoints, they will form a major part of the human's character arc.
You could do something interesting, showing the human grappling with abstract issues while the animals focus on practical matters. Animals are eminently practical. The capacity for abstraction is the hallmark of the human mind; which is a strength in some situations, a weakness in others.
A side effect of this practicality is the essential innocence of animals. I have always considered this to be the essential point of the Biblical story of the Fall. Animals never ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; nor was it ever forbidden to them. They have no moral sense. They have no shame. They don't need either. That's part of the abstract ideation that they don't mess with. I think that's why the death of an animal in a story is such a guaranteed tear-jerker for most readers (certainly for me!).
That's a little simplistic. Certain animals - notably dogs - occupy a midpoint on the moral spectrum. Dogs certainly know shame and guilt. And man is not the only primate capable of abstraction. All generalizations are false.
A story is all about specifics.
They disappeared at about the same time.
Can you say "Disney movie?" But what constitutes a happy ending here - the deer and the dog living wild and independent lives together? The deer learning to be a deer and the dog coming home when his buddy's okay?
Disneyfication aside, this is not a story for someone without a profound knowledge of animals. The breed of dog and the species of deer (around here, that would be mule or whitetail) would be the first important questions to answer. A story told without the viewpoints of the dog and the deer would be limited in many ways, so being able to think like the animals, and translate those viewpoints into terms humans can understand, would be vital. When writing from an animal viewpoint, it is important to remember that animals are not stupid compared to humans - they merely deploy their brainpower in different areas. The processing power devoted to a dog's sense of smell is every bit as impressive as that devoted to literary criticism, and the rewards for the dog far more tangible and immediate. The author would have to decide early how much to anthropomorphize the animals (a certain amount is inevitable), and whether to give both viewpoints equal time, or to choose one animal as the protagonist.
Then you'd want to know about the family they were raised in - why did they raise an orphan deer? There's all kinds of reasons not to. City folk get sentimental about them, but anyone who lives in the country long will come to regard them as "hooved napalm." Deer have numerous symbolic roles in our society; deer-hunting is an important cultural activity in rural areas; attitudes toward hunting, and the assumptions hunters and non-hunters make about each other, can stand-in for some of the most bitter, vindictive divisions in early 21st-century American society. These issues are too big to ignore, but could easily overwhelm the story, even if the author is trying to be even-handed. If the protagonists are the animals, these matters must be de-emphasized; but if dog, deer, and some member of their human household (presumably a child) all get viewpoints, they will form a major part of the human's character arc.
You could do something interesting, showing the human grappling with abstract issues while the animals focus on practical matters. Animals are eminently practical. The capacity for abstraction is the hallmark of the human mind; which is a strength in some situations, a weakness in others.
A side effect of this practicality is the essential innocence of animals. I have always considered this to be the essential point of the Biblical story of the Fall. Animals never ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; nor was it ever forbidden to them. They have no moral sense. They have no shame. They don't need either. That's part of the abstract ideation that they don't mess with. I think that's why the death of an animal in a story is such a guaranteed tear-jerker for most readers (certainly for me!).
That's a little simplistic. Certain animals - notably dogs - occupy a midpoint on the moral spectrum. Dogs certainly know shame and guilt. And man is not the only primate capable of abstraction. All generalizations are false.
A story is all about specifics.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Another Draft Done
Len is down below 80,000 words now; but she's got an 84-word sentence in there somewhere, and I don't know whether the pacing problem's solved or not.
Still, it's good enough for one week.
I'm leaning toward A Lie Worth Living With as a title. It feels a tad long, but it's good enough to stick on the query, anyhow.
Still, it's good enough for one week.
I'm leaning toward A Lie Worth Living With as a title. It feels a tad long, but it's good enough to stick on the query, anyhow.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Coincidence?
Yesterday my internet went out. Despite spending absurd amounts of time dealing with getting it back, I got all but one of my list of things done.
Today I have internet and I've done - well - a lot less.
Coincidence? Or causation?
I think I'll blame the weather.
Today I have internet and I've done - well - a lot less.
Coincidence? Or causation?
I think I'll blame the weather.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Idea Garage Sale: Contemporary Fairy Tale
The heroine's name is Jackie, of course; the youngest, the one no one takes seriously. Her family subsists on food stamps and is likely to be evicted.
Jackie shares her tortilla with a stray cat, though repeatedly told not to. El Gato is grateful and will help her find her fortune, but there's complications. Jackie's too young to buy a lottery ticket, and any treasure she digs up will belong to the property owner. Rewards come with strings attached. The grown-ups and older kids won't cooperate - they never do.
It's probable that Jackie and El Gato have different ideas about what constitutes an acceptable fortune.
Writing a book like this is following a well-trodden path; which means, if you want yours to stand out, you have to go head-to-head with some formidable competition. You'd better know your source material inside-out if you want to pull anything new out of it.
Jackie shares her tortilla with a stray cat, though repeatedly told not to. El Gato is grateful and will help her find her fortune, but there's complications. Jackie's too young to buy a lottery ticket, and any treasure she digs up will belong to the property owner. Rewards come with strings attached. The grown-ups and older kids won't cooperate - they never do.
It's probable that Jackie and El Gato have different ideas about what constitutes an acceptable fortune.
Writing a book like this is following a well-trodden path; which means, if you want yours to stand out, you have to go head-to-head with some formidable competition. You'd better know your source material inside-out if you want to pull anything new out of it.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wait, I was supposed to post yesterday
Sometimes I'm just not into the outside world. I want to stick my head into my study, write my little books, play my little games, arrange my little house (okay, it's a pretty big house by American middle-class standards), take care of my husband and the cats.
It's a luxury and it's irresponsible and short-sighted and undisciplined and it makes people think I'm anti-social.
Don't take it personally.
It's a luxury and it's irresponsible and short-sighted and undisciplined and it makes people think I'm anti-social.
Don't take it personally.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Random Thoughts on Reality
Modern aliens are boring. Don't believe me? Read these stories and ask yourself if it wasn't more fun before the grays came along and started hogging all the action.
By the way, I don't believe aliens are extraterrestrials. I believe they're fairies. What fairies are, I don't know, nor do I feel any need to. When I write a story with fairies in it, they'll be whatever kind of fairies suit the story's needs.
Ditto witches; though I don't like the word "witch" because it is used so many ways it's well-nigh useless without endless qualifiers. If everybody's on the same page about what it means for the purposes of a story, though, I can deal.
That's another of the skills fiction teaches us to use; the ability to set aside what we know, or think we know, and our own categories for the duration of a story, so that we can understand and enjoy it. People who get all bent out of shape and condemn an entire story over the mere use of the term witch, or because the aliens in a story don't match their expectations of aliens, or because the supernatural underpinnings of the fantasy are based in somebody else's tradition, are failing at this skill.
We should all practice it as much as we can. We're all jerks when we get bent out of shape, after all.
However, I reserve the right to get bent out of shape about stories in which it's taken as fact that witches were burned in Salem, because that's just not true and shows that the storyteller hasn't done his homework. If you want me to extend my conditional belief to an outright falsehood like that, you'd better tell me a story worth the effort of setting the lie aside!
By the way, I don't believe aliens are extraterrestrials. I believe they're fairies. What fairies are, I don't know, nor do I feel any need to. When I write a story with fairies in it, they'll be whatever kind of fairies suit the story's needs.
Ditto witches; though I don't like the word "witch" because it is used so many ways it's well-nigh useless without endless qualifiers. If everybody's on the same page about what it means for the purposes of a story, though, I can deal.
That's another of the skills fiction teaches us to use; the ability to set aside what we know, or think we know, and our own categories for the duration of a story, so that we can understand and enjoy it. People who get all bent out of shape and condemn an entire story over the mere use of the term witch, or because the aliens in a story don't match their expectations of aliens, or because the supernatural underpinnings of the fantasy are based in somebody else's tradition, are failing at this skill.
We should all practice it as much as we can. We're all jerks when we get bent out of shape, after all.
However, I reserve the right to get bent out of shape about stories in which it's taken as fact that witches were burned in Salem, because that's just not true and shows that the storyteller hasn't done his homework. If you want me to extend my conditional belief to an outright falsehood like that, you'd better tell me a story worth the effort of setting the lie aside!
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