Netflix: Regency edition

These past few weeks, I've been on a bit of a Jane Austen kick. I started out watching North and South, and it's just been all downhill from there. I don't know if that makes Jane Austen like Lay's Potato Chips, but it's been a fun week of curricles and British accents and flowered bonnets.   

In the spirit of learning from wildly popular books and movies, I present to you a brief analysis of what I think works about Jane Austen and similar works.

1)      They're so darned happy. Don't get me wrong. The characters go through a good deal of trial and heartbreak. But even in watching it, you're not too sad… because you know the heroine is going to get her hero in the end.  It's not a story designed to surprise, and that's okay. I love a good twist as much as anyone, but sometimes I want to sit with a tissue clutched in my hand waiting for Mr. Darcy to propose and enjoying the banter in between.

2)      Along those lines, If the ending is a foregone conclusion, you'd better make the middle as darned entertaining as possible. Which is something I could do to remember, given how I try too hard sometimes to have the perfect surprise ending (not a twist, necessarily).  But if your end isn't a twist or a surprise, it gives you the opportunity to bring in subplots and scoundrels and pretty dresses. It seems like a very obvious point, but sometimes, I need to even be reminded of the silliest of things.

3)      The Austen books and their ilk are known for creative, witty dialogue. As someone who loves to spend time exploring characters' inner thoughts and motivation, I sometimes forget to work on how much dialogue can add to the story.  For example, I love the way the dialogue is delivered in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. Take these lines, when Mr. Darcy shows up at a party, frowning mightily: 

Lizzie: He looks miserable, poor soul.
Charlotte: Miserable he may be, but poor he most certainly is not. Ten thousand a year, and he owns half of Darbyshire.
Lizzie: The miserable half?"

4)      Women love regency settings.  Any time they put out a period drama set anywhere from the Era of Unfortunate Man Leggings (late eighteenth century) to the time of Well They Invented Cars So It Doesn't Feel Historic Enough Anymore Decade (special nod to Downton Abbey for proving that cars can exist in period drama!). Yes, I did say women, because apparently, our version of Baywatch is men riding around in horses in the rain. Here, watch the following. (No seriously, watch it. With the sound on. Especially if you're female.)

Never fails to make me giggle.  How many rain scenes are there in these things anyway? I accuse the directors of adding extra. Not that I mind, shallow soul that I am. (I'm guessing Sheena won't mind either, because the clip features extensive footage of BOTH Colonel Brandons!)

Anyway, we're supposed to be talking about books here. Medieval fantasy is way overdone, so perhaps consider setting your fantasy novel in the above-mentioned eras. There are tons of books out there as sequels to Jane Austen's originals, or time travelling to Jane Austen, or monster-of-the-week and Jane Austen… And then there's the whole steampunk movement, which I quite enjoy.

Anyway, in the past couple of weeks, I've watched North & South (not JA, but similar, and I highly recommend it), both Sense & Sensibility movies, and I'm just starting on Wives and Daughters.  Northanger Abbey DVD has been requested from the library. Before long, I'm sure I'll be back to explosions and zombies. Well, maybe not for a while yet. Zombies don't look quite as dashing on horseback.

One Day

I Try to Take One Day at a Time

But lately, Several have Attacked Me at Once

My mom sent me a poster with that saying when I was in college. It seemed so apt for the insanity I faced. Life could never be more busy than it was then, I thought.

Hahahahaha. Yeah, right.

I'm terribly afraid that tonight's post is going to be exceedingly short. I have been attacked on all sides. Much of it having to do with my poor, dear mom falling and breaking several things, hospital visits, long drives etc. It looks like things are going to be fine, but I'm more than a little frayed around the edges.

But, not to leave you totally lost, I'll share with you one of my favorite poems that my mom used to read to us for bedtimes stories (hmm, come to think of it, could this kind of bedtime story be one of the reasons I am the way I am?? Would you read this to your kids at bedtime?)

Anyway, I leave you with some Edward Leer:

 Two Old Bachelors

Two old Bachelors were living in one house;
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse,--
'This happens just in time! For we've nothing in the house,
'Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey,
'And what to do for dinner -- since we haven't any money?
'And what can we expect if we haven't any dinner,
'But to loose our teeth and eyelashes and keep on growing thinner?'

Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin,--
'We might cook this little Mouse, if we had only some Stuffin'!
'If we had but Sage and Onion we could do extremely well,
'But how to get that Stuffin' it is difficult to tell'--

Those two old Bachelors ran quickly to the town
And asked for Sage and Onions as they wandered up and down;
They borrowed two large Onions, but no Sage was to be found
In the Shops, or in the Market, or in all the Gardens round.

But some one said, -- 'A hill there is, a little to the north,
'And to its purpledicular top a narrow way leads forth;--
'And there among the rugged rocks abides an ancient Sage,--
'An earnest Man, who reads all day a most perplexing page.
'Climb up, and seize him by the toes! -- all studious as he sits,--
'And pull him down, -- and chop him into endless little bits!
'Then mix him with your Onion, (cut up likewise into Scraps,)--
'When your Stuffin' will be ready -- and very good: perhaps.'

Those two old Bachelors without loss of time
The nearly purpledicular crags at once began to climb;
And at the top, among the rocks, all seated in a nook,
They saw that Sage, a reading of a most enormous book.

'You earnest Sage!' aloud they cried, 'your book you've read enough in!--
'We wish to chop you into bits to mix you into Stuffin'!'--

But that old Sage looked calmly up, and with his awful book,
At those two Bachelors' bald heads a certain aim he took;--
and over crag and precipice they rolled promiscuous down,--
At once they rolled, and never stopped in lane or field or town,--
And when they reached their house, they found
           (besides their want of Stuffin',)
The Mouse had fled; -- and, previously, had eaten up the Muffin.

They left their home in silence by the once convivial door.
And from that hour those Bachelors were never heard of more.

 

* many thanks to nonsenselit.org from whence I found this poem. 

 

~ Susan

Logic Versus Intuition: I Want to Believe

Last week, I showed my more analytical side, so I thought it was only fair to show you my other side. I feel a lot like Mulder-Scully mashed up, and there is always a struggle between my more rational self and the part of me that really believes anything is possible.


To illustrate this, I'd like to share with you something strange that happened to me this week.

I was playing evil princesses with my youngest, and she grabbed her Sonic the hedgehog plush toy from the bed. I lied down on the floor (a little tired from my late night of writing) listening to her playing with her Sonic toy. But when she came and sat down by me, she brought over a different toy.

I continued playing with her until lunch time. At that point, she started looking for Sonic, but can't find him. She asked me to help, and I look with her too, but he's not there. I saw her play with him, and I'm positive she didn't leave the room, but he's not there. But it's lunch time, so I promised to look for him later.

The next day, Sonic still was not found, but I knew he had to be in that room. My oldest started counting her money to see if she has enough to buy a new Sonic toy for her little sister (She’s such a sweety). My youngest was teeming with frustration, and I knew if I asked her one more time where she put the toy, she would cry. So I decided to really clean their room.

Three hours later, I've organized their closet, gone through their dresser, tore their beds apart and put them back together and gone through every box and bin in their room. Even moved out furniture and looked behind the curtains. I've looked in every conceivable place for that toy.


So I moved on to the rest of the house, but I know he was in that room. Still I searched the entire house. Sonic was nowhere to be found.

It is now five days later, and still no sign of him.

My Scully side is frustrated and completely exhausted, so now my Mulder side takes over.

Did Sonic get abducted by invisible aliens? Did the evil princesses come to life and shove Sonic out the window like in Toy Story? Or did gremlins living under the bed quickly snatch the toy, or worse the rats of Nimh? Shudder. Did all of Sonics electrons spontaneously shift to the moon?

I know these explanations are ridiculous, but I don’t know what else to think. As sure as I've been about anything, I know he never left that room.

Now I know what you all are thinking because I'd be thinking the same thing. In fact I can almost see the look on your face. It is the same look my loving family gave me when I told them this story right before they launched into the logical questions, "Are you sure she was playing with Sonic? Are you sure she didn't leave the room? Are you sure she didn't take Sonic with you when you went to pick up kid #1 from school? Are you sure you looked everywhere? He'll show up. He has to be there somewhere."

My rational, Scully side agrees with them and you, but my Mulder side can't help but wonder. As much as we, the human race, know, we don't know everything.

I know this is a silly (but true) story, and I by no means wish to convince you that my daughter’s toy was sucked into some other dimension or something like that. I still expect him to show up. I hope he will so that the Universe can makes sense again, and I won't have to buy a new toy.

But we have all experienced things like this, a disconnect between what we know must be rationally true and what we feel is true. I don't think you can exist on this world and not experience something like this at some time.

So what do you do when all logical explanations fail you? Do you doubt yourself? Wonder if you imagined the whole thing? Do you question your memories? Which is a logical thing to do, memories are far from perfect.

Or do you trust that part of you that just knows what you saw, experienced or felt was real?

I am a person of science and a person of faith.

I've learned to embrace my Scully and Mulder sides. I rely heavily on both those sides of me in life and in writing, and even though it drives me crazy sometimes, I wouldn’t want to be any other way.


For me, I need both parts to be the writer I want to be.

Scully strengths
Plots-Characters need to behave rationally and realistically. To me the plot is one big puzzle, and I need to use logic to figure out how to put the puzzle together.

World-building- My worlds are built around the story. So I have to think very logically about what kind of world would this story take place in and what kind of world would add more challenges or enhance the plot. I also do a lot of research (although not enough), and think hard about how to apply that research in a realistic way.

Description- I’ve always struggled with description. The only way I can write it is to picture in my head what the place or person looks like and try to describe it. It takes a big conscious effort on my part to get the right details in place.

Action-I have to choreograph my fight scenes, luckily I have a husband who knows a bit about fighting to help. I can’t just come up with these on the top of my head. But even the small actions take a lot of thought. I have to think deeply about what I want to convey by the action and what type of movements fit the characters.

Mulder strengths
Premise/idea-I never think about what I should write. I never try to write the market or honestly worry about my target audience. I write the stories I feel compelled to write. I don’t ever question it.

Characters-As I’ve blogged about before, my characters just seem to show up. If my characters feel off, I think about their motivations and back story until they feel right. This is all very intuitive, and I just go with it.

Dialogue-Scully is a little involved here since I go into each scene with a goal, and I do logically think about what these characters would say, but for the most part my intuitive side takes over. If the dialogue feels off, instead of analyzing why, I usually start over at a different spot or using a different angle and rework the dialogue until it feels right. So this could be a half and half, but I think this is a little more on the intuitive side.

Emotion-Scully gets no part in this. I do think critically on how to convey the emotion through action, but what the characters feel and why is all intuitive. There are times when I read a scene, and I can just feel that I got the emotions on the page the way I wanted to, and that truly is magical to me (I wish it would happen more often). I don’t think I could ever achieve that using logic.

This is how I’ve managed to make my Scully and Mulder sides work together in harmony. Honestly, I need them both.

So how about you in your writing? Are you more logical, intuitive, or a crazy combination of both?


~MaryAnn

Why Middle Grade Is Important

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader."

~ Margaret Fuller

Some Writing Advice From Dr. Seuss

Happy belated birthday Dr. Seuss!

Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) would have been 108 years old yesterday. In my opinion, he ranks up there with some of the greatest authors that have ever lived.

I used to have One Fish, Two Fish, Old Fish, New Fish completely memorized. I was bizarrely proud of this accomplishment. Every night, my children and I would sit surrounded by a pile of books and read, and read, and read. When it finally came time for One Fish, Two Fish, I would give a little sigh, shut my exhausted eyes and begin:

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

Black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish

This one has a little star.

This one has a little car.

Say! What a lot of fish there are!

This ended up being ironic, since it turns out that Dr. Seuss once wrote, "You'll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut." It's true, Dr. Seuss, but sometimes a mom's just GOT to.

The Dr. Seuss book I read the most often was probably There's A Wocket In My Pocket. It wasn't because it was the best, but because it was the shortest. It was perfect for those days when I wanted to be a good mom and read to my kids, but I wanted to be finished in under five minutes. J

My youngest son was obsessed with Dr. Seuss. We "searched high and searched low" for every Dr. Seuss book ever written--even the 500 Hats of Batholomew Cubbins and Thidwick, The Big Hearted Moose. My youngest is gifted mathematically, and I think it was the mathematical side of him that was pulled to the cadences of Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, which is composed of two weak beats followed by one strong, like this:

On the FIFteenth of MAY in the JUNgle of NOOL in the HEAT of the DAY by the COOL of the POOL. (From Horton Hears A Who).

Seuss generally maintained this meter quite strictly, until late in his career, when he no longer maintained strict rhythm in all lines. The consistency of his meter was one of his hallmarks; the many imitators and parodists of Seuss are often unable to write in strict anapestic tetrameter, or are unaware that they should, and thus sound clumsy in comparison with the original." http://www.moorepartners.ca/seuss-sc.cfm?ID=91&categoryid=22

He also wrote in trochaic tetrameter, (an arrangement of four units each with a strong followed by a weak beat) or it's opposite, iambic tetrameter (an arrangement of four units each with a weak beat followed by a strong.)

ONE fish TWO fish RED fish BLUE fish (trochaic tetrameter)

My HAT is OLD. My TEETH are GOLD. I HAVE a BIRD I LIKE to HOLD. (iambic tetrameter)

The first book Dr. Seuss ever published was To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, and it was rejected 27 times before it was finally accepted by Vanguard Press. Isn't it nice to know that even someone as obviously gifted as Dr. Seuss wasn't universally admired the moment he jumped into the writing scene? Just like us!

Advice for writers from Dr. Seuss:

"We throw in as many fresh words as we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it alive and vital. Virtually every page is a cliff-hanger--you've got to force them to turn it." (A Writer Teaches Writing, by Donald Murray)

"You can fool an adult into thinking he's reading profundities by sprinkling your prose with purple passages. But with a kid you can't get away with that. Two sentences in a children's book is the equivalent of two chapters in an adult book.

For a 60-page book I'll probably write 500 pages. I think that's why it works. I winnow out." ("Dr. Seuss's Green-Eggs-and-Ham World," by Judith Frutig)

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” 
― Dr. Seuss

“I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you.” 
― Dr. Seuss

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” 
― Dr. Seuss

“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.” 
― Dr. Seuss

 “You can get help from teachers
 But you are going to learn 
A lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room. 
All alone! Whether you like it or not, 
Alone is something you'll be quite a lot!” 
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!” 
― Dr. Seuss

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

“If you want to catch beasts you don't see every day, 
You have to go places quite out of the way, 
You have to go places no others can get to. 
You have to get cold and you have too get wet, too.” 


“Fame! You'll be famous, as famous as can be, with everyone watching you win on TV, Except when they don't because sometimes they won't..” 

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

“You have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.” 
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

 “If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along and you'll start happening too.” 
― Dr. Seuss

Bloggers, Run for Your Lives!

I got a tweet last week from D. D. Syrdal telling me I'd been tagged. I had no idea what that meant, but her blog post explained that it's a fun way for bloggers to get to know each other. What’s great about blog tag is that asthmatics can play without their inhalers.

So, verbatim from D.D.'s post on Filling Spaces, here are the rules:

1. Post the rules. 

2. Tag up to eleven bloggers by posting links to their blogs, and let them know.

3. Create eleven questions for the people you’ve tagged. 

4. Answer the questions your tagger posed for you. 

5. Have fun!

Choosing blogs to tag was HARD. Finding great blogs is easy, but guessing which bloggers might be willing to play along is more challenging. So, fabulous bloggers, please note that there is no pressure to participate. 

Does this image make the game seem creepy?

Tag! You’re it:

J. Lea Lopez 

Sarah Belliston

Nicholas Olivo

Wendy S. Russo

October Weeks

Beth Dolgner

Ana Ramsey

Marguerite Butler

Adam Slade

Rebecca Hamilton

Melanie Crouse (Howdy, fellow Proser!)

Your questions:

1. What should you really be doing right now instead of blogging?
2. What was the last book you read that you couldn’t put down?
3. What’s your guilty pleasure? (That's bloggable without a content warning, of course.)
4. Based on what’s in your house right now, how prepared are you for the zombie apocalypse?
5. If you could be the main character in any fiction genre, which genre would you choose?
6. You tumble through the looking glass or the magic closet or whatever, and find yourself the kickass heroine in an urban fantasy novel. Describe your tramp stamp. 
7. What is your kickass weapon of choice? (Kickboxing, magic, nunchuks…)
8. You go into your local dive bar to look for information about the seedy magical underbelly of your urban fantasy world. You order the usual. What is it?
9. A vampire, a werewolf, and a zombie walk in to the bar.* After you kill the zombie, which one do you flirt with to further your romantic subplot?
10. Another looking glass sends you into a historical romance. What is the time period and setting of your story?
11. How long is your love interest’s hair?

* Bonus: Prizes awarded for turning that line into a joke.

If you decide to play along, please come back and post a link!

My answers to D.D. Syrdal's questions:

1. If they were making a movie about your life, who would you choose to play you?

In addition to my circus-side-show height, I also have close-set eyes. I've always known I could never be a movie star because model-looks include good eye spacing. I asked my eye doctor, who confirmed I'm practically a cyclops.

Since there aren't any actresses who look like me, I'll say Anne Hathaway. I'd like very much to look like her. 

2. If you could be given another talent or ability, what would you want it to be?  Have you ever – really – tried to perfect this ability in yourself?

Growing up, I always wished I'd taken ballet, height and coordination issues be damned. Once upon a time I took private ballroom dance lessons. It was wonderful, because I danced with a pro who knew how to make me feel like Ginger Rogers. When I convinced my husband to join me, the magic was replaced by four left feet.  

3. If you could take one trip back in time, when and where would you go?

It’d be cool to see Jesus if I spoke Aramaic. Visiting one of the early American colonies populated by my much shorter ancestors would also be interesting. And who doesn’t want to see a Scottish castle in its heyday? 

Still, I really like indoor plumbing, and asthma medicine, and deciding when to have children. Those things have been awesome. I think I’d rather just visit in ghost form, like Scrooge. That way I wouldn’t catch the plague or get stoned to death.

4. Do you have a favorite movie that you can watch over and over?

I don't have a lot of patience with movies I've already seen. One exception that comes to mind is Lady Jane, which I watched over and over as a teenager. (Side note: I don't want to time-travel to the court of the Nine Days' Queen. It would ruin the movie.)

5. If you could choose to stay a certain age forever, what age would it be?

From my real life: 28. The year after my first child was born was one of my happiest times.

If I could do things differently: 18. I'd wear skinny jeans and a tight, low-cut top every day that it was too cold for a bikini. And I'd get a better haircut.

6. What is one of your favorite quotes?

Oh, that's too hard! One of my favorite poems is The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry. It feels wrong to quote just one line. You have to read the whole (short) thing.

7. If you could be any fictional character, who would you be?

Anne of Green Gables, but after she got together with Gilbert. I don't need all the teenage angst.

8. What sound do you love? 

The ocean. Barking sea lions and fog horns optional.

9. What superpower would you like to have? 

Matisse: Dishes and Fruit (1901)

Flying sounds fantastic, but it would be hard to use without causing a scene. Getting the house to clean itself with a wiggle of my nose would give much more bang for my super-powered buck. Yes, I think I'll stick with the practical one. I have a family, after all.

10. Do you have a favorite artist? Who?

I don't know much about art, but I've never met a Matisse I didn't like.

11. Have you ever wanted to invent something to make your life easier? What?

I’d like to take the wide elastic band on maternity jeans and turn them into a mainstream fashion trend. Why should only pregnant women get to have their designer jean cake and eat a whole lot, too?

Woo-hoo! Initial results are in...
Sarah Belliston wins the prize for promptness with her post. Thanks, Sarah!

Reining in a scattered mind

I spent all day yesterday at a meeting/symposium thing for work.  As I sat through the morning lecture, trying not to squirm, and then through the afternoon discussions, trying to keep my mind from drifting away from a very important conversation, I thought again about focus. I've been meaning to write about it ever since Sarah's excellent post on the subject. Now that I look at it again, we do have a lot of similar coping mechanisms, even if the details differ.

One of the most interesting things I learned from Sarah's post was that ADD is in part not having enough stimulation to the brain. I've been thinking about it, and maybe my mind works that way a tiny bit. I often like to play minesweeper while watching tv because I get too twitchy otherwise, and I swear, if I could do cross-stitch or play Tetris during meetings, I would be a lot happier – and I'd absorb a LOT more. But alas, that sort of thing is frowned upon at work, so I resort to drawing endless spirals on my notepad and trying not to squirm.  

Here are the coping skills I've gathered throughout the years.

1) Routine and tradition

Having a set schedule definitely benefits a scattered mind like mine. My ideal pre-writing routine is to make a cup of tea and sit outside on my backyard patio for a few minutes thinking about what I'm going to work on that night.  Alas, there's this funny disconnect in my mind so that I somehow believe that routine takes up too much time. Of course, when I don't utilize my routine, I end up spending ten plus minutes playing on the internet, assuring myself that I'll get started any second now.

2) Stopping to take a deep breath.

Even once I've got my bottom on the couch and my hands on the keyboard, I still can freeze up searching for that ever-elusive moment of flow. Sometimes it works just to be stubborn and forge on putting words, any words, on the page.

But sometimes I need to stop, take a deep breath, and take my eyes off the computer. To remind myself of the grand scheme of the story, or maybe to realize it's time to stop beating the poor scene to death and move on. Sometimes it helps to visualize the scene I’m supposed to be writing, to go through it in my head like I'm watching a movie. It's actually kind of fun, and I end up with details to add to the scene that I'd not conceived of before.

(Does anyone else like to imagine the movie trailers for their stories, or is it just me?)

3) Holding myself accountable for distraction.

I went poking around the web a month or so ago looking for ideas on how to improve focus. One tip I found was to take a small piece of paper and set it next to my working area. Every time my mind wanders or drops out of focus, I draw an 'x' on the piece of paper.

Seems rather obvious, right? But I was actually surprised how well it worked. Not only did it make me aware of how often my mind wandered (lots of x's on the paper...), but it also held me accountable for it. The piece of paper gives me something concrete to focus on, something to shoot for, and maybe that's what I needed.

4) Music. 

I have to have music in the background at all times. But unlike Sarah, I can't stand Baroque. I have an active hatred of it, as a matter of fact. If I knew anything at all about musical theory, I could probably say something intelligent about structure and composition. All I can say is there's something about it that's profoundly irritating. Maybe it's too sprightly.  Maybe it's the… is rhythm the right word? No, but there's a rhythm-type-thing that bothers me the most about Baroque.

And every time I think about Baroque, I think of this. Thanks a lot, Disney.

Anyway, I much prefer Romantic era music, like Tchaikovsky, or Debussy, or Dvorak. I also love modern composers, like Clint Mansell and Philip Glass. For me, the best music for writing can help me get into the mood of the story I'm writing. I have a whole slew of industrial/darkwave music for when I'm writing horror or dark fantasy.

And then there are some songs that are inspiration on their own, either because they invoke a picture I like, or a hopeful or dreamy mood. Or sometimes, because they're just so amazing inspires me to create something of my own. 

Do any of you have any songs like that, that make you want to create?

Here's one of my favorites, a collaboration between modernist composer Philip Glass and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar: