Forward Momentum Is Everything

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.

We all knew this day had to come.

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

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.

Work, in its many shapes and forms.

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.

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.

A goal, a goal!

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.