The Journey of Characters

A positive for me as a lifelong reader is that I'm ahead of my reading goal for the year. If you just read 'reading goal' with an eye roll, I thought it that way myself. This is my second year with some kind of arbitrary goal, brought up by the site Goodreads. My goal so far is to aim for a minimum of two to three new-to-me books a month and I'm already on book 26 for the year. 

Before I added my 26th book to my currently reading list, my attention caught on a review for a book I'd read several years ago - the first entry of an urban fantasy series. I am doing a quick reread of the series in preparation of reading the four most recently published books (which are new-to-me). The reviewer gave the book two stars and complained about how much she disliked the heroine. 

I wasn't bothered by the rating or review, but I was struck by the reason she disliked the character as a kind of vital reason that character existed, at least to my analysis. In a potentially gritty and action packed world, a pretty girl with low general life ambition maybe doesn't have the best life expectancy. And yet as the first book (and then series) progresses, you experience her evolution. A hero's journey. 

My second thought from this character-based dislike is that this kind of character, in my humble way of thinking, tends to act as the safe gateway for 'regular' people to find themselves suspending disbelief and more fully immersing themselves in the story. A flawed guide who makes stumbling into a strange world perfectly accessible. Why yes, I'd puke my last three lunches up if I saw a man's face get eaten in an alley, too.

I'm all for warrior queens (or any variation of strong female characters), and yeah aimless characters who just get by tend not to do it for me in general - except there is an entire drive to want to see how people, how characters, evolve into what they're capable of. If you're writing off the character who cries over cutting her perfect blonde hair (and believe me, if that's the extent of the emotional depth I'm out, too) then you're probably going to miss her disemboweling a creature and feasting on it's wriggling flesh to heal a mortal wound. Or...something. 

The reviewer's complaints were all totally valid. I didn't much like this character either. At first. If she lamented about her matching outfit and lip gloss one more time I was going to lose it. But it didn't last. Her life becomes a series of thresholds that change everything about herself. What a shame the reviewer didn't take the journey to see that girls with pretty pink nail polish and white capri pants and sandals can become more. That anyone can become more. 

It's a process

I mock commercials. Or I did, back in the day before the glorious addition of the DVR to my life. One in particular comes to mind at the moment, for my candy-drug of choice, about there not being a wrong way to eat it. I disagreed. I still do. Because if you're trying to peel off the top and bottom coating first, you're the kind of person I don't need to associate with in life.

And then there's writing. Everybody and their mother's cousin's uncle's college roommate is only too ready to tell you what you're doing wrong. And how to fix it. Usually for a low, low price. Sometimes just for the satisfaction of being 'right'. 

So what does that make us?

I've bitched and moaned lamented about this ad nauseam before. Opinions are like assholes and the world of writing is no exception to this. 

So there's an inherent... shall I say... danger in asking questions related to your personal writing process. Which is why it's nice, vital even, to carefully accumulate good people to bounce these thoughts and queries off of. Because there is equal danger in being so closed off that you never entertain any new-to-you thoughts. This is not the time/place for a philosophical/self-help discussion about how sometimes you have to block everything external out and just do you. So I move forward with the idea that this is specific to the thought in my mind at the moment. 

The thought bubble over my head about writing of late is what I'm calling layering. Rather like the layers of animation cells animators (at least in the old days) use to flesh out scenes and character actions. 

See, I've got this manuscript. And I'm a fair chunk into this. Character development. Interpersonal stuffs. Dialogue. Some action. Some foreshadowing. But I've left some important stuff out that I kind of need to start addressing. That's needed to move forward. 

I get caught up in my characters when I dive into a project. Who they are. How they think. How they speak. How they interact. How they would approach this or that. And what I'm working on in this particular piece, is the kind of grand epic, an immersive fantasy/horror world that I've always wanted to tackle. But I've been so distracted by getting this collection of characters just so and exploring particular situations that need to happen (until the culling that is editing happens) that I've neglected other areas that I need to start tackling. I mean, if your goal is to write a swashbuckling tale of pirates navigating the globe but after 150 pages everyone is landlocked with no voyage in sight, you may have gotten a little carried away and lost sight of your outline. You may also have ended up writing a different kind of book, but that's neither here nor there. 

And this thought overwhelmed me a bit at first. Like, how do I go back and enrich this landscape, to restructure the world-building? How do I add in what I was oblivious to being missing in the first place?

Layers, I thought. I brainstorm on what's missing and is needed to ultimately move forward. I dump a veritable shit-ton of sand in the box and start digging away. Again. I go back later on and weave in (because, *groan* I've got to edit it anyway) and then onward to where our intrepid heroes or victims were left off and take up as though this nonsense was always there.

And when I realize I missed another part of what goes into this kind of larger scale storytelling, I'll go back and add another layer. Then repeat.

Tell me something I don't know.

Checkmark

When our new dog arrived home after what felt like forever (more like a 2 month wait), my life as I knew it kind of went on hiatus.

A running, pooping, peeing, chewing machine cute enough to inspire spasms of cuddles was on the loose. And yes, training, but it takes time.

The exhaustion between the new dog and my mom neared critical tipping points. Non-essential brain functions turned off. Several essential ones turned off as well. Creativity is kind of vital to my brain and that was firmly walled off.

And then after about a month, it busted open and demanded attention. Sporadically. But still. A scene, separate of anything I had been working on, came to mind. A writing exercise of sorts. Short, (hopefully) quick.

Two  months later, (like I said, sporadically) I finished it. The rough, rough draft. Which I have less than zero interest in revisiting, let alone revising. But I finished it. A small victory, progress, completion, in the face of domestic (small-scale) chaos. A completed project in the history of mostly unfinished writing projects.

I'm not shooting off fireworks about this. I'm not making myself a cake. But I will take a few moments to appreciate the act of finishing this little piece. And then build on it. Get back to something a little longer and then finish that. And then get back to one of my long-running novel projects and hopefully finish a draft of that.

While on hiatus, during those random moments when exhaustion would claim the fuzzy creature, I made my way through the original 2 seasons of Twin Peaks.

I've heard about this show for what seems like forever. It was a little out of my league when it came out, owing to the fact that I was still in elementary school when it first aired. In light of the the show being brought back for a limited run, I was able to finally catch up and see what all the fuss was about.

Whatever else I would have said about this show now takes a backseat to what was my greatest find:

Pre-X-files David Duchovny.

I've got the last episode of the second season to watch and then I make my way to the current stuff.

Starts and Stops

A few years back, I began work on where I wanted to be (a mindset as opposed to a place). Positive thinking. Not being sucked into negativity and other people's quagmires of drama. And I did a decent job for a while.

So is it an explanation or an excuse to be able to chalk up where I fell off the wagon? Because I did fall off and struggle to catch back up. With all the grace of an albatross skateboarding with sparklers.

I start. I stop. I grow more frustrated. I carve out a bit of peace. I start again. Huge muddy pothole in the road. I stumble. In spectacular fashion. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It's life, simply put. It has that way of happening to you. Curve balls, change ups when you get used to those fast balls or low pitches. Sports. Holy hellfire, I went with a sports analogy.

Bah. This all devolves into motivational sayings ("Fall 99 times, rise 100", "Rest, don't quit", "Don't eat the yellow snow", etc ad nauseam) and yet they ring true. 

Despite frustrations, upheavals and the like, there's still reason to get up in the morning - even if it's because you've been jarred awake by the sound of a dog hurling up his toenails after chomping down a large bug. There's still a reason to keep moving forward and recommit to the direction you want to go. 

I scrapped 2 other blog post starts tonight and at least two more in the last two weeks. Stars and stops. Get something done to get back on the horse. Finishing something - a quick and dirty (alas, not that kind of dirty) blog post, a short story, a sketch, whatever - is a good start.