Category: Daily

Posted on

Day 76: On Giant Lizards

I believe I’ve griped elsewhere that I envy artists’ ease concocting the fantastical.  I don’t know that I pinpointed the part that annoys me the most: that they can do it with obvious style, accuracy, and expedience.

There are differences in drawing giant lizards and writing giant lizards.  An artist draws the exact giant lizard she has in mind: the one with baggy skin, porcine snout, but sinuous tail.  Or maybe the one with a thick-veined dorsal fan, tusks, and dainty wren-feet.  Currently, an author expounding anything is to be held in disregard for the sin of ‘info-dumping’.  An author, rather, must become a modeler.  Starting of with giant lizard lump-of-clay then gracefully mentioning excessive rolls of leathery skin when it moves the plot forward, or the piggish facial features when it enhances the theme, and finally the sinuous tale when it increases the conflict.  Or maybe none of this at all–just knowing inside that it was all there despite the literal omission required to novelate commercially.

For author’s these days it’s about the journey and not so much the scenery along the way.  Scenery is fine to be sure as long as we readers don’t have to slow the vehicle to take it all in.  There really is no picture taking and definitely no scrapbooking in novels these days.

Fairness is not a concept I worry too much about when I gripe, but I always wanted to be an artist, so I have decided to find out just how hard it is to craft a giant lizard in a visual language.  I suspect I’ll go for the same 1000 day conceit I’ve been pushing here–though I don’t make as big a deal of it over there.

Maybe some day I’ll have color.

Word count: 291

Posted on

Day 75: One of Shanty’s Ends

Thickening the plot remains elusive to me.  After I practice writing I must learn to practice thickening.  Even a runny plot would be better than what I regularly mix up.

If you take the time to read any of what I have written–here or elsewhere–you would likely discover that I dabble in images.  The very brief element of a scene is something I feel I am good at generating.  In addition to setting the scene, I like to think I am able to allude to a direction, to a conflict.  Regardless of your appreciation of my abilities to do that, I have that impression.  The thing is, I don’t have a plot or even a plan.  I just have a finite moment or two.  What I need is a next.

I’ve heard more than a few authors like to determine the beginning and end and then work out the middles.  I have tried that once and still not gotten the middle worked out.  Mathematician’s would argue once is not statistically valid–possibly it’s worth another shot.

What I have in my head while I am writing is this thing with Shanty.  I’ve ended up with three scenes pointed squarely at a single destination.  I think it’s clear that destination isn’t the end of the story, just the site of the initial physical conflict.  I like these scenes and I am enjoying the characters thus far.  I don’t want to let them down.  I don’t want to let them down by composing crap nor by not composing anything at all.  Each of the three began as a simple but concrete point of view effort to describe Shanty.  There was no intention.  Maybe I could just try the same technique on the ending…

Tritti held nothing more dead Johnka’s belt knife.  She held no doubt that she would next kill the Killer.

Gane’s enormous hres finally paid off with the location of his sister.  Behind this door.

You tug at your shackles.  You pray that when they chronicle your journey that they leave this next embarrassing part out then fear for your immediate death overwhelms you.

The young witch resolves from the darkness with only that knife as a weapon.  She imbues it and throws.  No matter how you move or jerk or turn away it will find you heart.  Gane opens the door, sees the knife, and shields you in time.

“Brother!”

Let’s see if we can put that to some use.

I should probably look into what comprises a good paragraph before I spend too much time composing any.  It’s doubtful I’ll discover anything I don’t already know about well written paragraphs, but I imagine the effort will beneficially remind me what I already know.  Not doing so perpetuates bad habits.

Word count: 453

Posted on

Day 74: One Good Paragraph

I’ve been struggling with an offline way to write these posts. I am not satisfied with the for offline blogging tools like Qumana, LiveWriter, or ecto. I can’t exactly define why not. Mostly they feel barely a step above the built-in tool so why bother. I’ve practiced with Google Docs, but it didn’t seem to translate the title properly–or I messed it up.

On top of all that, I use multiple input computers so even if I could settle on a single offline tool I’d have to install it on all three comps and then I would have my posts all over the place still. I suspect I’ll have to look at the WP export output to see what it looks like. I don’t want to risk losing all this effort. For now the offline tool that gets the most use is DarkRoom. It can be a bit flakey considering its nothing more than a textpad clone with cool-factor. No offense.

I am going back through my “Blog This” posts from Flickr. I started to get concerned that I wasn’t fully understanding the contradictory “Blog This” and “All Rights Reserved” tags on some pictures I was seeing. When I see the ARR tag without the BT button I only link back. But when the BT button had not been disabled I assumed that was a choice made by the photographer. Turns out it’s not; they have to explicitly toggle both separately. I am going back and requesting permission where needed.

Pictures every once in a while will spice up the textual overload of this blog, but I am not able to get all the pictures I need for inspiration by myself. I am working on some subtle art for the background and I may punch up a few gentle colors in the right places. As easy as it’s supposed to be, I find the whole CSS thing to be difficult to navigate. Not difficult to figure out–well, not entirely–but difficult to navigate someone else’s stuff. I know there are tools out there, but I haven’t had the time or volume to learn how to use those to make it easier on me.

I did get the tags to display at the bottom of each post here. Now I just need to get back to getting back to updating those first forty posts with the proper tags or that big REGULAR over on the sidebar is going to be more and more out of place. I’ve given some consideration to dumping that tag altogether but haven’t gotten around to fully thinking that over.

Need a short paragraph to break up the medium sized run I got going here. This ought to do.

Speaking of paragraphs, I believe I need to better consider how I am breaking up that level of thought in my writing. For now I am getting away with simple chunking of thoughts. I need to better compose at the paragraph level. Lead with a good sentence support with the following ones. That’s a great new feature. Along with whatever creative inspiration hits me, I will include a succinct paragraph that very closely conforms to the prescribed paradigm. Let’s try one now…

The cat down climbed the tree. The great big tabby hung like it had been thrown there and stuck. The orange splatter of legs and arms and tail pointed nervously back to the pained face. The cat seemed to be pausing to ask itself why it had done this again. It continued to scrabble down the high trunk of the pine below the lowest limb, half backward and half sideways. It slipped another body length, turned inexpertly, and plummeted to the ground within a shower of bark. As best it could it landed well and recovered its dignity.

Word count: 625