The Schemer, the Plotter, the Razer of Cities.

Forward Momentum Is Everything

2009-12-31T04:47:00.000-08:00

Things happen in your life, even (or especially?) when your life is structured and mapped out to near-perfection, that totally derail your plans. It’s the things that don’t make you feel sorry for even one second that make life worthwhile, and teach you to take everything as it comes.

I didn’t even get close to reaching the ambitious goals I set myself in June. Did I have a marvellous holiday? That'd be an understatement. Ever since I’ve been on a thrill ride that only seems to become more fun with each passing day. Normal just doesn’t quite exist anymore, and I’m not mourning the loss.

And somehow it’s turned December, and I had to be reminded I hadn’t updated this blog for months. I’m backing up, sorting out, and have stopped postponing decisions I'd been leaving for later. I’ve cancelled subscriptions I’ve been meaning to cancel for months, have discontinued old web domains, basically stopped what no longer fitted into my life.

Definitely different from the normal backing up and sorting stuff that I normally do towards the end of December.

I initially didn’t think I had much to show for 2009, where it concerns accomplishments. Closer inspection tells me that’s not quite the case. I passed my teacher training course, officially qualifying me as a teacher in higher education. I got a promotion, which is one way to interpret that I’m doing something right professionally. I gave what in my opinion was one of the best birthday presents ever. I managed NaNoWriMo in November, which was an accomplishment in itself, besides the added value that that particular project had as well. I read six books more in 2009 than I did in 2008. I’ve finally started those postponed driving lessons, and got my driving theory certificate in one go.

I did a shitload of photography both privately as well as professionally, and I even got paid for my first poster. I saw Neil Young perform, experienced Rammstein live again, and it took me twenty-eight years, but I’ve apparently finally learned to relax. (Though not all the time.) I wrote three chapters for my PhD thesis.

That thesis is my biggest failure as well. Then again, as I keep jokingly telling people: theoretically I have at least eight more years to finish it, so I shouldn’t be in such a rush. I predicted 2009 would be a better year than 2008: in many ways it was, because I got at least two research spots where I’m more than welcome to spend some time, and I did quite some decent research besides that. My whiteboard, tellingly, is not empty, as it was last year, but still has last thesis chapter’s structure on it, which I haven’t removed yet. Still, I could have done more. More positively, I could have done less.

Physically, I think this has been the year when I’ve seen the most doctors, dentists, and other health officials ever. This despite the fact that I’m pretty healthy as healthy goes. Weird, that. It doesn’t help I have a toothache as I write this. On the other hand, this too can only get better.

Writing-wise (thesis and otherwise, my private diary the only exception) this has been a very bad year, continuing the downward spiral I started last year. I’ve been word counting on a daily basis for the past four years now, and this has been the worst year for writing since 2006. (I wrote a third more this year than I did in that year. Comparatively, I only wrote 50% in 2009 of what I wrote in 2007.

Last year around this time, I summed up 2008 as a year with no real lows and no real heights, steady on a comfortable level. I said that I should probably aim for heights in 2009. I think it’s safe to say I managed that one. For me 2009 was the best of years and the worst of years, to misquote Charles Dickens. The first half was the worst (though it wasn’t entirely bad), the second half was the best. It’s simple, really: you can’t have heights without the lows.

I’m not sure what to expect for 2010. In 2009 I marched into the unknown reasonably optimistically, to discover the unknown is nothing to be afraid of. I have the suspicion 2010 is going to be brilliant, but it’s never good to have too high expectations of anything, especially not of an entire year. I predict that if 2009 was about changes, 2010 is about even bigger changes.

I wish for everyone’s 2010 to be like my 2009: an adventure that gets better every single day. That for you, 2010 is going to be the year in which you’ll reach for all the goals you’ve set yourself and find them closer than expected. A year in which you’ll conquer the things you fear, get everything you really desire (but not too easily), and in which you’ll have the strength to push yourself, to dare to do great things. A year in which no one can stop you unless you let them.

Finally, have my year in pics, here.

Setting goals means one of two things: insanity or perseverance...

2009-07-19T10:14:00.001-07:00

... and only time will tell which it is going to be.

I don’t like Dickens. Perhaps a strange thing to admit for someone who reads as much Dickens and writes so much about him and his works as I do, but the only novel I really like and which redeems everything is The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and that’s probably just because it was left unfinished. The rest just makes me want to bash my head against random hard surfaces most of the time.

Right now, I’m on the last Dickens book I’m discussing in my thesis (Bleak House), and I’ve gone through it so many times (in the past as well) and have gathered so much of my own commentary on it that I’m getting pretty sick of it. (Even though I tend to think it’s one of the better novels.) I’ve managed to connect it all, but since I’m left with a piece of text of about 5000 words long now, and which is more summary than analysis, I’ll definitely have to go back to it. Just not today.

I’ve gone back to reading Gaboriau (who should be known as a philosopher besides just a novelist and a journalist, but then this is the first time I’m reading him, and everything that’s new is exiting). I’ll probably move to Wilkie Collins after that (that’ll be coming home), though I might take a break in-between and go for some Patterson (how modern of me) too.

I’m not sure if this is just the change of the old romans de gare into modern ariport novels, and whether it has anything to do with the fact we don’t travel as long as we did once upon a time, but modern detective fiction definitely reads quicker than the old stuff. I’m not sure which I prefer (purely generalising, the new seems to sacrifice characterisation for plot, while the old just beats you over the head with plot and characterisation), but right now I’m starting to become fed up with the nineteenth century, and am really looking forward to getting to the Sherlock Holmes chapter and safely into the new territory of the twentieth century.

Goal: finish this chapter in the next two weeks, start the next one and finish that in another two weeks, which leaves another week for the chronological chapter, which will pretty much be cut and paste, except I’ll have to analyse everything together in entirely new and exciting ways.

In-between I will be bored, bowling, camping, swimming, or (hopefully) driving. Last holiday I’m not going anywhere, I think. I’m currently just horrifically jealous of everyone who’s getting on a plane.

Sun, flowers, and a camera = bliss.

2009-06-21T03:28:00.000-07:00

Relaxation was in order, so someone pushed a camera into my hands and sent me off to photograph gardens in Overschie. It’s a very good way to get to know the new camera (and I do admit I’m still getting to know it), and I experimented with (exposure) bracketing. Until now, I’d take a picture that I knew was more or less near what I wanted exposure-wise, and then manually adjust going from that picture for the right one. With bracketing (which is automatic on the 50D) I try to take the perfect picture in one go and end up with some room to move in with the other two pictures, one over-exposed, one under-exposed. Because the sun was unreliable today this wasn’t an entirely bad thing.

(Try picking a favourite in situations like this, though: there're usually two you want to keep.)

I love, I have to admit, underexposures, especially with colourful flowers. Underexposure brings an almost unearthly deep colour to pictures like that, partly because the background becomes so dark it's non-existent.

You can also get some really contrastive results, almost like paintings. (Proof you don't have to buy your wall-decorations anywhere: just make your own and have them printed on canvas.)

And sometimes, besides just pretty pictures, you get lucky and take an actually good one. I'm really proud of the bee picture, and even prouder of the one with my grandmother. Virtually impossible to catch her not paying attention, but when you do it works.

These were all taken with my macro lens, none of them went into a graphics programs except for a 50% size reduction, and the complete result can be here.
And I got to finish this at McDonald's, pouring my heart out. All in all, a wonderful day. ;)

And now, apparently, I am walking my dog. And I probably have to make it easier to order prints from the website.

Final weeks

2009-06-17T02:30:00.001-07:00

Final weeks are strange. Or maybe it’s just me, and I’m reliving my student days vicariously through my students.

In my experience teachers aren’t horrifically busy in the final teaching weeks of a year. (Unless they’re language teachers and they have to go through the hell of oral exams.) Students tend to be horrifically busy trying to make deadlines and do oral exams and fix things that they postponed or forgot and really need to fix last minute. (Suffices to say, this is impossible, unless you’re good at taking deep breaths and have infinite patience.)

It’s when the teaching stops that things get rough for us. You have to find those marks you put so carefully away three months ago. (Too carefully, as it turns out.) Leftover presentations, leftover assignments, in short: up in paperwork over your ears. (I tend to try and make the paperwork digital. The only advantage to this is that its easier to hide.) There’s thesis checking and the defences that logically follow. And this is all besides trying to get your exams checked in record time. (Or at least in time for resits.) You don’t plan too much and put your life on hold for a bit. (Lunch becomes the most important meal of the day, because there’s the risk of being asleep before dinner.)

Don’t pity us, though. There’s no greater satisfaction than sitting back after the rush and discovering (almost) everything went all right, and the things that didn’t are easy enough to fix. (Relatively speaking.)

But do gives us a thought, especially when you’re about to write an email you probably don’t need to send. ;)

Don't mind the techno-babble, or: choices-choices...

2009-05-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

After getting sunburn on two consecutive days (well, I made an effort), today seems to be the day where the evening gets cool. There’s a wind (can’t call it a breeze) starting up, and I suspect we’ll have rain in a little while. I’m not entirely unhappy about that.

I got work done. I’m not done, not even for the day, but I need to get Poe (Edgar Allan) out of my head for a while, and I’m poking at pictures. (Among which, these.)

And I’m reading up on camera reviews, because now that I’ve decided my new camera isn’t going to be the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (because I simply can’t justify the expense), I’m slightly torn between the new entry-level 500D and the semi-pro 50D.

Why am I buying a new camera while I have a perfectly good camera (EOS 400D) sitting right in front of me, you ask?

Because of the Digic 4 image processor and the improved noise reduction boosting the ISO range and increasing shutter speeds, the little girl says, smiling brightly.

All right, I’ll explain.

I’m taking more and more pictures inside (official IBL house photographer, and then consider that once upon a time I was just a lowly nature photographer), and I don't want to use any kind of flash unless it's absolutely necessary, this is where specs start to pay off. Apparently I can go up to ISO 1200 without noise becoming a major problem. (Currently, results in 1600 ISO make me want to cry, though 800 is all right.) Now I'm looking at 1600 ISO pictures taken with both the 500D and the 50D which look fine, and 3200 ISO results that you can get away with, and besides those I've seen 12800 ISO pictures and they're still pretty decent, if you don't try to blow them up. I need fast shutter speeds in dark surroundings.

I am, as said, not 100% sure yet. I'm 80% sure I’ll go for the 50D, because I want to go up a step, which means leaving the hundreds range. (Because when it gets down to it, with the 500D I'd just be replacing an entry-level SLR with a more advanced entry-level SLR.) The semi-professional 50D is slightly heavier, which (strangely enough) makes it easier to hold still, and it's faster and more accurate. I can save custom set-ups, which would be perfect since I hate Canon thinking for me while I’m taking pictures.

But in the end, for me it's all about the light sensitivity, and the video option isn't really a dealmaker or breaker, because if I wanted video I'd buy a video camera.

See you at FOKA Monday afternoon, I guess.

The most magnificent thing in the world...

2009-04-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

... is to get home after what can only be described as a rapidly worsening day and find that you haven't sold your soul to the devil after all (only just lent it out), because there's still your old love looking out for you.

We all knew this day had to come.

2009-04-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

Despite having subscriptions to several magazines (among them ZOOM and other such hobby-related reading) I will always prefer books, which is probably why I have a magazine backlog of about six months.

One of my more questionable subscriptions (probably the first to go if I have to cut back) is Dutch “Schrijven Magazine”. I have to be completely honest and admit I probably only read it because it often makes me laugh in disbelief. Put two writers in a room and wait for them to disagree, mm? The April-May edition has Dutch author René Appel commenting on dialogue tags (or identifiers), by means of an example in the form of an extract from a Dutch novel:

“Het woordje ‘zei’ wordt opvallend vaak gebruikt. ... Het is net of de schrijfster in deze functie geen ander woord kent dan ‘zeggen’ en voor de verandering ‘vragen’. ... Een schrijver kan mensen ook iets laten melden, voorstellen, suggereren, veroordelen, reageren ... etc.” (14)

Freely translated:

“The word ‘said’ is used remarkably often. ... It is as if in this instance the author can’t come up with anything besides ‘said’ and the occasional ‘asked’. ... An author can also have people report, propose, suggest, denounce, react... etc.”

But wait a minute. I liked Appel (back when I still read Dutch novels), and I rather admired him, which makes it easier for me to take his word on this, but I also remember a discussion on using identifiers in fiction which came to a different conclusion.

The English equivalent of Dutch ‘zei’ is said. Now some people think said is boring (“Writers are supposed to have vocabulary!”): most people don’t even recognise said when it occurs in dialogue, which is why I say: Use It! Said is like the perfect spy: it doesn’t draw attention to itself. Without going as far as becoming said-bookisms, there are identifiers (which some authors use to make things more exciting) that just get in your way when you’re reading.

What are you talking about?" she hissed.
Try hissing that. (You can’t: no sibilants.) Or laughing it. Seriously.

Famously, in a conversation between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle uses (in his 1887 A Study in Scarlet):

"I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were several most instructive points about it."
"Simple!" I ejaculated.
"Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise," said Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise.

Yeah. (Agatha Christie is guilty of this as well, so maybe this is a detective fiction thing.) But let’s just say that’s why you want to avoid overly exciting identifiers. Just for fun, let me show you a Tom Swifty:

"Pass me the shellfish," said Tom crabbily.
(Or my personal favourite: "I might as well be dead," Tom croaked.)

This is part of a bigger discussion, of course, the one about showing, not telling. While I’m not a complete proponent of that one (I always defer to Orson Scott Card, who says it’s best only to use it for dramatic sequences), I do have a soft spot for said. I have to agree with Appel that you don’t have to use it as a dialogue tag all the time, as with everything the rule is: if you can leave it out, do.

Just don’t leave said out altogether.

I've got to admit it's getting better / A little better all the time

2009-04-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

I began clinging to planning and schedule earlier this week, which is usually a sign I’m heading for some kind of disaster. Maybe it’s the weather, or maybe it’s taking things easier, but I seem to have avoided disaster and managed to sort things out again. Yesterday was all right, today is better, probably also because it’s quiet. (Though that’s a relative thing, here at the Kralingse Zoom.)

And I’m writing. Good things and bad things but most of all things that are helping me get other things out of my system. Let’s hope that this time I won’t jinx the mood and actually get some work done. April was going to be the month in which I finish another chapter, but that was a decision I made in early March, and March was the month in which Sadly Nothing Got Done.

Reset the goals, let go all the things that don’t matter, and let’s get going.
A redesign of the website might be a nice place to start. (When I need a break from the writing.) Getting out with my camera would be an essential part of that, and the weather might make that a grateful mission.

Despite its peace and quiet, I’m very quickly developing a rather deep and dark hatred of Thursdays though. They’re interminably boring, and I bear boring quite badly.

Probably should have gone to Groningen this weekend after all.

That time of year again.

2009-03-28T11:41:00.001-07:00

I do being sick really badly.

2009-03-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

At LiveJournal, I have an icon that says “I’m sure I’d feel much worse if I weren’t under such heavy sedation.” I picked it because of the general sentiment it relays, but for the first time since I’ve had it, I think it’s also actually descriptive of my physical state. The things that 550 milligram of naproxennatrium can do for you, mm?

The bad thing about this cold is that once you feel that you’ve overcome one of the symptoms, it’s replaced by another. I started with a sore throat and no brain capacity, so I battled the sore throat (mostly with medicine and sleep) and somehow managed to regain some brain capacity, but then got tackled by a tickling cough that’s kept me up half the night, which doesn’t do much for either brain or body. (Too tired to get up, coughing too much to get back to sleep.)

So there’s that, and I haven’t eaten in two days (can’t count marmalade on toast and some soup, really), and I’m sort of but not really hungry for the steak that I got Wednesday evening for Thursday’s dinner, which I never ate either. Plus I’m bored, but I don’t have it in me to either read or do anything else.

Woe is me. :(

Yours for the Taking

2009-02-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

For The Disciplines song quoted in the title, check their MySpace page. I’m making it my theme song.
What it’s getting down to is that it’s nice to get patted on the head for laying out your love-life to your friends. Which still makes me an idiot, but a relatively content one. Possessing ties and cufflinks, no less.

I thought I was approaching the upwards inspirational curve early this year (but then I had an extremely bad start) because my word count (thesis word count, no less) increased, but apparently the part of my brain I need for reading rapidly evaporated as well. (Which means I'm more or less screwed, and not in the good way.) Then again, I’m not writing much at the moment, but that’s probably from London and too much shopping. (Though I wrote on the train home just now.) I’m putting my money on tomorrow and hoping things’ll sort themselves out before works starts again. (And surprisingly, I'll be so glad when it does...)

What is good is that I've been finding notes to myself about writing things that I have (by this time) already written. It's good to find out the brain is doing what it intended to do six months ago. What's scary that I'm not entirely conscious of the process. I am told that the slow descent into hell is just part of the thesis-writing process. (I'm lying, of course, because I'm actually having loads of fun. To admit that is to jinx. Which probably means I'm screwed any which way you look at it.) We keep calm and carry on.

I have a bet: thesis finished by March 2010. I get a punt to Granchester over the Cam (with picknick!) if I make that, and I owe two people a dinner at the Sherlock Holmes Pub if I don’t. Either way, I win, it looks to me.

Brightness decays brilliantly. Madness is the most shining way.

2009-02-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

I love how life can box your ears and make you reassess things you've just started worrying about and makes you realise you can stop worrying, because it's about people, and you can't control people. Terrible realisations over the weekend remain terrible realisations over the weekend, but at least I can live with the notion that perhaps the best state for a writer is one of frustration. Frustration makes you do things. Satisfaction, most of the time, does not.

That said, I should get incredible amounts of work done, the next few weeks, months, etc.
I could do with less of the hyperactiveness of it, though.

Or it might just all be caffeine deprivation.

The way I set goals you'd think I liked new years

2009-01-22T23:34:00.001-08:00

I've looked back at 2008 elsewhere, but I think it can be summarised as a year in which many unimportant goals were reached, and the important ones are still pretty much where they were in 2007.

So, 2009 will be the year in which real progress will be made. (Haha!)

The year starts off well: I have (it's still officially unconfirmed: people who teach teaching courses apparently don't have to reply to emails or confirm receipt) passed my didactic course, which means I am now (or should be) fit to teach in higher education. (The ceremony's Monday.) Suffices to say it's a relief, because it was starting to turn into a black hole sucking in all my spare time.

Today is the last day of teaching this semester: next week will have resits, and exams the week after that, at which point we will have arrived at a brand new semester. Time flies. Two terms until I can spend the summer in Cambridge.

I suspect I won't be as blindly busy with teaching as I was last year, but together with clearing out all the stuff on the work harddisk, and in the email and desk drawers that belongs to last semester (and tidying my room), the coming two weeks (if there's time, between checking exams and seminar days) the brain deserves some tidying as well. Review, reassess, and replan all the goals. Sort things out before it's Februari.

I like the idea of 2009 as the year I'll actually have something to show for my effort.

a period in life with no goals is an illusion (for me at least)

2008-10-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

As said elsewhere and before, lots of milestones the last couple of weeks/month. September tenth made it a year since I graduated, and October tenth a year ago was my first day physically in front of a classroom, no funny business. November 3rd was the day on which some indefensible behaviour got me unto the track of writing a doctoral thesis. It makes me feel like I should take a moment to let this all sink in, because I really haven’t had anything like that for a while now.

Did I? Will I? (Right, not bloody likely.)

Emotionally, psychologically, academically, I’ve grown more this past year than I think I did while still in university, which is very possibly just proof that the student world is a safe one, and a student’s view narrow. Shame on me.

So I’m approaching the one-year-anniversary of my attempt at a doctoral thesis and have admittedly very little to show for it. (An introduction and a first chapter.)

With November and National Novel Writing Month approaching, I got an October word challenge writing for the thesis. I said yes, because that’s how my brain approaches challenges. The goal for this month was officially to finish a chapter for the thesis (I wasn’t going to reveal the word count that I was actually aiming for for fear of sounding naïve, but I’ll risk it and admit I’m 3000 words short of my 25000 word goal). I probably won’t make that 25K before the month ends, but I do have a chapter. I’m not completely happy with it, and November is going to be NaNoReMo for me, besides just NaNoWriMo, but it’s nice to get some work done. The introduction had value because it helped me figure out what I was writing about and where my boundaries were. The chapter has value because it gives me something to show for my work, which is a psychological necessity.

Because 25000 words on an academic subject is insane if you have to do it besides a fulltime day job, next target is a more careful one: chapter 2 by mid January (I’m not saying the end of December, but I’m aiming for it).

At which point I’ll admit I’d be really annoyed with me if I were my student.

Am I enjoying myself? Weirdly enough, I am.
Am I going to crash? I’ve been able to avoid it since I got tackled by a cold last month, but knock on wood.

When you think of me, this November, think of me reading. You’re not going to be too far off. (I have the new KJ Parker waiting. :P) If you see me scribbling fiction, ignore it. I'm not aiming for 50K. At all.

Rapidly approaching deadlines are good for getting to goals.

2008-08-30T04:12:00.000-07:00

Putting some pictures up from the company trip yesterday made me get to developing some things for the website that I hadn't gotten to previously. (That's priorities and lack of time mostly, as ever. Do notice I didn't do it during the holiday either. :P) Anyway, the photography part of the site is more or less up (mostly less), and I suppose I'll just put a link for the teaching stuff when I'm sure about the link on Monday and sort out the About page tomorrow.

After that I'll probably go for a redesign again, but oh well.

Did the more necessary things, like vacuuming the inside of my parents' computer and putting in a working DVD-writer. I'm backing their stuff up and doing a clean reinstall over the weekend, because the damned thing is getting slower by the hour. I'll probably put some additional memory in there as well and see how that works. (More memory and clean reinstal should equal super-speed.)

Tonight is dedicated to getting that damned thesis introduction into shape though. If I can't pour all the stuff dancing around out of my brain into a word document I'll not be responsible for the consequences.

Also, need sleep.

Why this sudden urge to get things sorted? Certainly teaching starting this week has nothing to do with it?

Work, in its many shapes and forms.

2008-07-19T02:25:00.000-07:00

I talked about reaching the end of the inspirational curve in my last post, I believe, not quite realising how true that prediction would turn out to be. My word counts over May and June have been atrocious (or they feel like they have been), and only July seems to be making up for that slightly. As a student, my writing tended to take precedence over my schoolwork (especially phonetics suffered grievously), and I've always been the first to admit my priorities were very wrong back then.

These days I've got even more priorities (or goals, anyway), so even more of a chance of side-stepping them, and, in effect, responsibilities. Except I don't.

Life may not start after graduation, but it changes, God, it changes. And even if I try to tell my students that studying and doing homework is not that different from work and doing the assignments your boss gives you, I can't pretend it isn't different for me now. I can't show up in front of a class unprepared. (Somehow it's easier to show up prepared and do other things though, maybe because the back-up plan is still in place.) As a student, failure just results in not passing a certain course or class. After graduation, failure has as a possible consequence that you get fired. So first and foremost (and this is probably insecurity as well), I make sure my classes are prepared. The only reason for this to maybe suffer a teeny-tiny bit is when I have a deadline coming up for my doctoral thesis, which apparently ranks higher in my brain of priorities. Fiction-writing, as stated before, suffers.

But today is the first day of my holiday, and between packing and wrapping things up (we’re moving offices after the holiday), last week wasn't as busy as the weeks before (which suddenly turned into unexpected hell), which gave the brain a chance to relax. I'll wrap up some last work-related things this weekend, put all my work-stuff I took home in a bag, and leave it in the corner of the library. I don't think I've ever experienced a holiday in which I could physically, psychologically, put a goal/priority away in a corner. It feels wonderful.

As a result, that inspirational curve? I'm in the steep part of it that goes up. :D

I think I’ve figured out the main (methodological) topics of my thesis, and I have high hopes of having a finished introduction and approach by the end of this month, if not the next, with a chapter 1 that’s more finished than in progress by September. And that’s taking into account my slacking abilities, not even a best-case-scenario.

Fiction-wise, big steps. I’ve got the basic plot for part one pretty much figured out and written, which leaves filling the gaps before I dare and try and expand any subplot. I did a run-through of the entire text for part 1 (108.000 words, thankyouverymuch) last week and think that even if much of it still needs work, there’s two parts in there that are really, really good. Small steps should get me a good way towards a finished first draft. Going to Cambridge is going to really help towards getting part two fleshed out. (Though seriously, it’s research for sequels.)

Yeah, I know, don’t tell me. Too much sleep is bad for me. :P

Reading begets writing, and vice versa.

2008-04-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

The proliferation of fanfiction of course being the most solid proof of that.

I've got periods of writing and periods of reading, but until about last week I think on both the reading and writing fronts I've been in hibernation.

But work has slowed down due to the approaching resit and exam weeks; more to do for the students, less to do for the lecturers. So feeling a bit less stressed, I started Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. At the same time, curiously enough, my fiction writing picked up again too. The almost 8000 words last week (it's more already this week) are a lot better compared to the miserable counts I've had the previous weeks. Not fanfiction, not even anything related genre-wise, but just enough pleasant reading to inspire pleasant writing.

Linda made me a present of some Diana Wynne Jones books (four Chrestomanci novels) for my birthday, and once I started reading the first last Monday I've proceeded to devour them whole. (I'm saving one for the backlash that I predict is a week or so in the waiting.) I haven't been inspired enough by them to actually write about them (last novel that nearly got me there was The Historian), but I've been racing through them at an alarming speed, and my word count with it. Christopher Chant is just one of those characters that's too easy to fall in love with. And if you're in love, even if it's with fictional characters, everything goes easier. Your brain goes wild for a while, and you read and write and forget to sleep, and at some point the brain slows down, and it's time to concentrate on other things for a while. (Like photographing falconry demonstrations. Or simply SLEEP.)

But reading begets writing, and writing begets reading.
And that works on more levels than just the most obvious one. It's to do with what Dickens wanted us to think about when he wrote that "Everything in our lives, whether of good or evil, affects us most by contrast." (The Old Curiosity Shop) That quote has called out to me ever since I read it for the first time, because it strikes me as so very true. Contrast, yes, but contrast emphasizes differences, and there can only be differences (and hence, contrast), if there is a common factor for comparison.

As a budding writer, you emulate the authors you read and enjoy. Plotwise, character-wise, genre-wise. It's the reason why first-time books tend not to work when you're only just beginning. (Editing and time has to save you from mediocrity and cliché.) It's the reason why too much science-fiction sounds like Asimov and too much fantasy sounds like Tolkien. (The only genre that accepts this and has incorporated it into its very identity, incidentally, is detective fiction.) It's a way too start.

When you start thinking about your own writing, and developing and keeping your own style, and you start realising that there are simply some things you may want to avoid, like flat female characters, male heroes who have to find items (rings, swords, anyone?) that will surely destroy/save the world, and having a fantasy story that is more about developing your own made-up language than telling a story, your writing will improve. Most importantly, you'll notice the difference. You emulate what you like, but twist it until it becomes your own. You avoid what you dislike, or twist it so it becomes your own (though not necessarily more likeable).

At that point, everything you start to read will influence you, whether you want it or not. If I ever get published, I'll feel forced to thank every author I've ever read, because one way or another, they were influential in inspiring me. Some because I wanted to be like them, some because they made me realise what to avoid. Contrast again. There are no good or bad experiences, there are just experiences, and you'll learn from them. There are no good and bad writers, just writers. Some you will love, and some you will hate, and usually you'll be able to find people who can give you excellent arguments for thinking exactly the opposite, which is what makes it even more fun.

I love KJ Parker, first and foremost because she's writing against the grain as a woman focussing on more technical subjects in writing. I'd like to write like her, because she's a wizard (witch?) with plot and general evilness. Still, every couple of chapters I want to hit her for missing out on things that could very well have made a novel even better. I'm starting to wonder if Diana Wynne Jones and JK Rowling aren't two sides of the same coin. DWJ sketches worlds that go beyond anyone's imagination, but sometimes her characters seem less rounded than I'd like them to be. JKR began taking characterisation a step too far when she discovered what caps lock abuse is.

My suspicion is that there's a middle road between plot and characterisation that very few authors manage to find. That doesn't mean that that's actually really true, but that that's just what I look for in a novel or a story. Wynne Jones and Rowling have proven that their formulas are successful even though many readers will point out flaws, and I suspect Parker may get there in the years to come. But the books are theirs, they're the ones responsible, and they're the ones who decide what they write about. We can complain, but that doesn't change anything.

There's no such thing as the perfect story, and if there is, it'd probably be dead boring. But what is true is that you write what you want to read. If you can find an audience that's like you, that wants to read what you want to read, and what you're writing, you've got it made. (Well, hypothetically.) Any author writes the sum of his or her influences; social, cultural, personal. It's a bit of yourself transferring to the (digital) paper, and that's what makes it fun, and that's why so many people, most of them without any ambitions to ever publish anything, write. They started reading, because that's how you start, and then started writing, and discovered the interaction between the two.

Personally, currently, it looks like I'm reaching the downwards part of the inspirational curve right now, which is good, because it means I don't have to feel guilty or sorry about focussing on the dissertation from next week onwards again. (How many words can I write in the next three weeks, I'm wondering?) But it's nice to remember how easy it is to get into writing again. Everyone has books that they return to for comfort, that are so pleasant and so familiar that they're like that hot bath that you can sink into after a terrible day (week, month) at work. And everyone has at least one story in them, however silly, sentimental, cliché, or frightening, that has the same effect as the hot bath and the favourite book in the writing it down. Enjoy it if you find it. But don't forget to enjoy someone else's, too.

Not on writing, but on confidence.

2008-03-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

With there being very little time between the job, dissertation research, and keeping up with life in general, my reading of normal books (as opposed to, say, research or work books) has been reduced to a minimum that wasn’t even this bad when I was still at university studying English literature. (To say nothing of writing.)

I made an effort this last week, after I sent in my unofficial dissertation proposal, to finish some books I have lying around half-read. I started Lauren Bacall’s By Myself and Then Some because it was for sale at the book fair, and I thought it would be fun to read considering the Bogie-factor. I loved it, I think. Not absolutely and all-overpoweringly, but I’d recommend it.

I was particularly struck by this, somewhere on the final pages:

“I guess a true sense of self-confidence is not in the cards for me. At least in certain special situations. It’s a different kind of nervousness – not like opening night in the theatre. I think it’s reverting subconsciously to my first dreams of becoming an actress – of being so star-struck. After watching for so many years Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Vivien Leigh, Gielgud, Guinness and more – to find myself meeting them – being accepted by them as one of them, no less – was quite unbelievable to me. And upon working with any of them – at the beginning I became eight years old.”
(page 461 in my Headline paperback)

I think I get where she’s coming from. I tend to get nervous around people I admire, as if somehow I could let it slip I’m actually not the person who they think I am, or I can’t do what they believe I can. It’s absolute nonsense, most of the time anyway, but the brain conspires against you like that sometimes.

I had that with writing only in the beginning. I didn’t admit to anyone I wrote except close friends and family, as if somehow that could jinx it. That went away, and it’s one of the few things I can be grateful to fanfiction for. It gave me enough confidence in my writing to admit to actually doing it. It’s like that anonymous quote: “Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.”

Which hopefully means I’ll stop being an idiot about dissertation meetings at some point.

A goal, a goal!

2008-03-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

As if I really need more goals.

One of the things I loved about public blogging was the fact that you got into contact with other people who (accidentally or not) stumbled unto your journal entry and found something they liked. Human nature and its love for recognising something familiar, probably.

One of the things I loved talking about was writing. Looking back on that, it was more talking about how I felt about writing rather than writing itself. I tell my students now that they have to write and think about how to approach the introduction, the body, and the conclusion of any text they write, but meanwhile I never quite did that myself. I just wrote, and the fact that I somehow got away with it possibly says something about my natural writing capabilities.
Different for literature essays than for business letters, of course.

What it doesn't say, of course, but what is implied, is that I could have done so much better had I actually listened to my teachers and thought about structure. I talked about hindsight in my previous entry, I believe. It explains why I always did so well comparing poetry though: I never much liked it and reverted to the structure and close-reading of the text, which forces structure by its very nature.

The realisation, I think, is that I was approaching essay writing the same way I approach fiction writing. And since I'm one of those people who work a lot of mystery into their fiction, that means I didn't think about thesis statements, because that would give away my topic right at the beginning.
Seriously, THAT WAS WHAT I WAS DOING.

So maybe I want to talk about writing again. The fiction writing in my life currently just consists of snippets. I want to get back to my 75% finished novel, but I'm afraid that if I do that, I'll get lost and let go of writing a dissertation all-together until I get published. Dreamer.
I'm getting the hang of structure. It's killing me, but I'm getting there. I've analysed introductions, stolen the structure and made it into a research proposal that only covers about half of my idea for a dissertation properly. (Must really get self to stop having tunnelvision.) I think I can have a reasonable amount of pride over the fact that I tamed structure though. One step at a time.

I refuse structure for this though.
There shall be no attempt at structure in this blog.

First Entry

2008-02-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

And so we try again.

I've caught myself from having gone to a rather introspective kind of journalling/blogging to a more informative kind, which probably has to do with the fact that I'm too busy to have any real thoughts beyond the kind that have to do with work. It's bad when researching for a possible PhD becomes one of the few remaining escape routes in your life.

So I've pretty much stopped writing, I've admittedly begun photographing again, but other than that, life is currently a marathon consisting of reaching the end of the week so I can sleep. (Right, that's probably my cold talking.) I'm not saying I'm not learning a lot, and having enormous amounts of fun, but it's going too fast.

Meanwhile, I've been forced to rethink my writing, in particular the academic kind, but as a result also the normal kind. For most of my life up to now, I've just written, and not thought much about beginnings, endings, and the way to go about it. That I got away with it, to the point of getting my MA, says something about my writing skills, but the post-graduation time has made me realise a lot of things, not in the least that there's a more theoretical side to writing as well. And that, if I want to attempt this PhD, I'll definitely have to reconsider how I've written before.

Is it weird that you can only appreciate your education after you've actually finished it? And that you wished you would have realised that more consciously before it was actually over?