Today I should do the chapter, but I’m still not QUITE up to it (though no antihistamines today.) I should also – in the sense that it’s my obligation – write about why the voting changes in Colorado are wrong, and can’t even be covered by the fig leaf of “greater voting opportunity.” There is in fact no fig leaf except the destruction of the individual right to vote. It has to be the intended result. (And btw, would there be a remedy via the courts? That at least ties it up long enough that we get a couple more elections and throw these clowns out?)
But writing about this will just make me depressed. It probably helps understand my feelings if you “get” that at eight, when I had no clue where Denver was, I told everyone I was going to grow up, be a writer and live in Denver, and that the more I found out about both ideas, the more I wanted to do it.
I don’t want to move out and I don’t think it does any good, either. When we moved to the Springs it was trending Libertarian. If all it takes is for these vile progs to get power, and they change the rules so it can’t ever be taken away, ANY PLACE is vulnerable.
Anyway – I’m not going to talk about that.
Instead, I’m going to talk about the many heads of the writer – mostly because I think the current problem I’m having is due to being stuck in the wrong head.
I’m not talking about pen names. That’s a problem all its own. Humans are, as you know, weird people. You know this particularly if you’re one. What I’ve found with pen names – caveat emptor – is that once you give something a name, it acquires its own personality and ideas, PARTICULARLY if it’s secret. This was part of the reason I had to drop my nom de political blog. This woman was living in my head rent free. I could tell you what she was doing at any time of the day. It got creepy.
The open pen names aren’t as much of a problem. Sarah D’Almeida is just another name for me. (Interesting side note – my maiden name was de Almeida but I figured D’Almeida got me better shelving, in the Ds which used to be important. It wasn’t until talking to my dad that he told me that de Almeida was ONLY adopted by his father and before that our family name was D’Almeida. Now I wish I had known that before I got citizenship, when I could have changed, and before I named the boys.)
But the secret names – and in these days of indie writer, every I writer I know is at least trying those with short stories – quickly try to become multiple personalities. My kid was groaning about his romance pen name, which hasn’t even been published yet… And I once overheard one of my colleagues say “My pen name and I go into a room, only I come out.”
The levels of insanity in that could potentially make normal people think we should all be locked up, except they can’t because we’re writers and we’re supposed to be nuts. It’s right there, on the box.
But keep that in mind, because it will come up later in this ramble.
Right now the heads I’m dealing with are all mine – no pen names, no secret names. They’re more what you’d think of as toolboxes.
If you’re a writer there’s several things you do – you have to do – research, edit and creative writing as such. These all employ different thought processes.
I don’t know how other people do this, understand, so what you’re getting is me, and how I do this.
I do three types of research: unfocused “craving” reading, often on subjects that I have no idea relate to anything I’m writing; focused general reading on a time or a subject; spot-research where I look up words, locations or names to fill in a hole in a story that’s being revised.
You’d think the middle one would take up most of my time, but no. The middle one is controllable. The first one comes from wherever the impulse to write comes, and it can become overmastering and interrupt things that need to be done, and generally drive me nuts.
Did I say I have NO idea where these needs to read obsessively on a subject come from? Worse, that sometimes the idea that I’m groping for doesn’t show up for years? For instance, I spent three years reading everything I could about Queen Victoria’s empire, with a sort of compulsive intensity. It wasn’t until ten years later that it became the proposal for the Magical British empire. Worse, by that time I’d forgotten the reading. I’m only sure it was sort of there, all the time, buried deep, because I bought a bunch of books to research the proposal and then, when cleaning to move, found the exact same books, bought ten years later, at the bottom of a closet.
Right now the craving readings are on true-crime cases – bizarre ones, like the Black Dahlia case – and paranormal activity. That these are hitting together is making me feel skivvy. I’m not sure I want to write anything that presents that way. (OTOH isn’t part of what I do to bring stuff into the light? It’s what I try to do at any rate.)
Anyway, that’s taking up a whole lot of time when I should be writing, and it’s hitting “that” part of the brain, that is neither writing nor revising and making it very active. (We should light the rat signal and get Dr. Tedd Roberts to come xplain how this works.)
At the same time, I’m editing a bunch of manuscripts, and that’s a different type of mind again.
There are three different types of revision. There’s story revision, but I call that rewrite. There’s coherence revision and there’s copyediting.
I know a lot of people who write in revising mode. If you can, it’s best to revise in writing mode. What I mean is that your revising mode tends to be more word focused and … petty, frankly. It can’t see the story and it goes nuts on commas and concordance. Or it picks at “you said he was standing, but now he’s getting up from the chair.”
I’m doing that type of revision on Musketeer’s Seamstress, because it needs it, but it brings out a type of thought that doesn’t LET me write. I call him Bob. He has a clipboard and wears glasses.
The problem with both of those parts of my writing brain being very active is that it seems to cause a “different” type of block. As in, I can see what I should be writing, I just can’t do it. I can’t get in the story mind.
The research mind is a dreaming and putting things together mind, but it’s not coherent enough to write in, and the revision mind just won’t let me write more than three words at one go.
Usually I can flip between either of these minds and the story mind, but both at once are driving me nuts.
Which brings me to a book I read for research this week – It’s called “the Trickster and the Paranormal” and it analyzes the trickster both as a parapsychology phenomenon, enshrined in the religions of the world and tricksterism as part of being involved in these marginal fields – what they call “at the edge.” This is used both in the senses of low-status and the fact that what people do in these fields isn’t rightly understood. So it’s easy to cheat. And almost impossible to do scientific research.
It occurred to me when reading it that a lot of our scientific fields have gone “at the edge” in pursuit of cash, and that there too the waters have gotten too muddy to know what is going on, precisely.
However, by definition, being a writer is one of those fields. Heck, we’re not even sure what we do, ourselves. There is a lot of “and then something happens and I have a story in my mind.” It seems like shamanism even to me at times. And the impossibility of relating these subconscious processes to others leads us to making them, instead, rational and ordered, which involves lying to ourselves, which in turn messes us up.
Anyway, they defined the type of personality involved in this and it seemed like a description of most artists, including writers. People who have trouble describing what is true and what isn’t, and who often have issues with relationships,etc.
I’d say it confirmed my rather smug idea that I’m too sane for this field, except that a person who complains two of her heads are blocking the third, probably shouldn’t say that.
And that, my dears, is the state of the writer for today. I am going for a walk and then seeing if I can revise a chapter so I can put up a coherent chunk of Shadow Gods in the subscriber space.
According To Hoyt 
I have an evil inarticulate algorithmist in my head. The little bastard only ever says “meh”, until he stops. When he stops, I’m done. He’s never wrong. He clearly knows where I need to go, but will.not.fucking.tell.me.
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Oh, yes, on the not telling you.
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I haven’t done any of my fiction writing in enough years to remember what experiences I had with the various “heads” of writing you described (my writing, when done at all these days, is non-fiction, mostly editorial or commentary). I do, however, have a client at work who enjoys commenting about how I talk about my brain in the third person, doing things separately from me.
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Off topic, but I just got bit of a practice run about living without electricity. Just a bit over four and a half hours, but interesting, especially since we lost it just when I had started to cook dinner. Reason seems to be: a capacitor blew up, there was a big surge and four transformers started to burn (provided I translated that right, electrical engineering is not among those things I have the vocabulary for so that was done with the help of an online dictionary).
Oh hell. So I have to, at least, remember to buy batteries a bit more often (didn’t have any good ones home, fortunately I had charged my phone recently enough that I could listen to radio with it), keep fuel for the camp stove I have at home (can’t use it inside, but I do have a balcony), and maybe get some goddamn cheap laptop and keep it charged so I don’t lose my internet connection the second I lose electricity to my apartment (just an old desktop computer now, and yep, the phone has internet but I hate using it, for one that is a bit difficult for somebody with less than completely dexterous fingers and not so great eyes).
What is a bit worrying is that there have been more of this type of problems during the last half decade than there were during the couple of decades before it. Old grid. And no guarantees there will be any big upgrades in the near future.
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Go with refurbished and insured– I like office max/office depot. Tax and two years of insurance included, it was less than the shelf-price for my new, “cheap” laptop. (Way more than I wanted to spend, but it’s a NICE computer.)
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Thanks for the idea. I’ll see what the options are here.
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Also look into a UPS. Getting a big one will keep things up longer.
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What does the United Parcel Service have to do with this?
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Amen. A UPS is a requirement in these parts. And heck, so is a generator. Our resident monopolist is antique and makes what we had near DETROIT look up to the minute and worked with loving concern for their customers in comparison.
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Has anyone here used one of the new cheap android netbook/laptops? I’ve been thinking about getting one, but don’t know anyone who has used one to tell me how they actually work.
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Try this:
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/04/30/In-praise-of-the-Chromebook
And the author, John Hayward, is worth reading most of the time.
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And on topic: I have that book, The Trickster and the Paranormal, too. Scary: the claim that a lot of the people who venture to that edge, play with the paranormal or even perhaps are just interested in it, may end up some sort of truly mad with time. Becoming a shaman or any of the modern equivalents seems to require being a bit mad to start with, being just a bit mad but not so much you cease to be a functional member of society at the same time can presumably be a hard balancing act so I suppose it makes sense but it’s not a comfortable idea to consider.
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Considering writing shares a lot of characteristics with shammanism? No.
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I once read a book of guided meditations about questing for the holy grail. Something told me in no uncertain terms that I had better NOT try any of those meditations. Only bad things would result. I’ve learned to listen to that prompt and I finished the book without doing any of the exercises. Looking back, I wonder if G-d was warning me away from the edge.
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I think we each have pretty good ideas of what the edge is — and often it is a story. I have stories I will NOT write. No matter how much they push.
And yes, ignoring those back-of-the-head alarms is usually a good way into trouble.
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The back of my head hates me. It always gives me bad advice. Except on the times that I have decided not to listen to it any more.
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At the same time, there are stories that seem to repose on a ledge just past the edge — or else closer to the edge than you’re ordinarily willing to go. You walked up to the edge and didn’t see it until you got there. A kind of unanticipated adjustment of your horizon.
And, sometimes, they stand there on the ledge and threaten to jump.
M
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I play with magic, and I’m a pantser, but I’m hoping that the safe strategy is to concentrate on the material and practical more than anything like searching for the ultimate truth or other lofty stuff like that. So the magic I do concerns the here and now, and when I dream up a story I think in terms of a good story way more than what the themes may be or if there may be any truths, any kind of truths, hidden in it. I don’t think I know enough of the unknown to barge into it, especially without a map, and with this there are no maps yet (or weapons – there may be dragons there). I may explore a bit on the edges, but I don’t try to look too deep. No matter how much not knowing bothers me. And believe me, that territory does bother me. I don’t much like unsolved mysteries, much less unsolvable ones, I like to know.
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When I was a young boy, I discovered a very old woman living in the woods behind our house (there was about 4000 acres that were owned by the same person at that time — it’s all been broken up and sold off now. At the time, it was accessible to me and my friends and cousins. I spent most of my free time there as a young person [age about 4 to 17]). This old woman, the first black person I’d ever met and had any dealings with, claimed to have been seven when the Civil War started, and that she ran away at 10 to live in the woods. She practiced voodoo, and had a small group of people that came to her regularly. I doubt that five people not her clients knew about her, and I kept her a personal secret until years after her death. She was SPOOKY!!! Yet we were friends for about five years. She died in 1971, while I was in Vietnam. If she had actually been born in 1855, like she said, she was probably the oldest person I’ll ever meet. She and I talked about voodoo and other things, and she said that it was something best left alone — IF YOU COULD. Sometimes, she said, the voodoo won’t let a person alone, and they become like her, or worse. Spooky, spooky woman.
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Yep– if a person is not let alone, the individual needs to learn how to control it. Opening yourself wide open is not a preferred method because it leads to possession. There are certain things that can’t be explained by psychology or science.
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I’d go so far as to say there are certain things that can’t be explained by our current understanding of psychology and science.
There is more than a bit of truth in A.C. Clarke’s saying: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Or the obvious corollary: magic is the natural attempt of the human mind to grasp technologies beyond an individual’s current understanding.
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I agree with that too–
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I fail to see any significant difference between magic and quantum physics. Throw in M-Theory and you have a structure in place.
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When I first read about quantum physics, I had the same reaction. ;-)
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How do you modify the pentacle to account for spin?
Does entanglement affect the rites of opening and closing?
Though…I’ve always believed that the Elder Sign to be a 2-dimensional rendering of a tesseract, so snark may not be my safest position here.
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The pentacle is a focus, as are the other items. It is the mind’s ability to shape the M-Space that determines the results. The Laws of Similarity and Contagion are inconsistently applied by people who lack confidence in the results; that lack of confidence produces irregularities in the flux.
If Reality is formed and maintained by His Thought, is it any wonder He doesn’t want us jogging His elbow? Can there be any doubt that Man’s thoughts could potentially affect Reality?
Most people cannot handle the stresses of multidimensional reality, which drives them insane and that insanity impairs their ability to manipulate the Reality.
Take the proper initial premises and everything falls into place.
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From an observer’s standpoint, not so very much.
But from a practitioner’s knothole, predictability and consistently reproduceable results make all the difference.
Or to put it rather crudely: This sh!t just happens is magic. I can make this sh!t happen each and every time I want it to is science.
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Witness that eating a chunk of willow bark extract is now Science.
Magic is unexplained casuality. When we know how it works, it’s Science. When we know it doesn’t, it’s Superstition — or, worse, Sorcery that sometimes work.
To be sure, fantasy magic is usually Stuff vaguely like Stuff we used to think would work, but now know does not work.
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I think Charlie Stross is a bit ahead of you there.
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Interesting. Uh, I hope you won’t mind if some version of the lady ends up in a story some day?
Yes, I do believe that can be dangerous and should not be treated as a joke. Even when you just play with it you should treat it seriously, use what safeguards you can. And find out about the rules, what rules seem to be known, before you start experimenting. And yes, keep away if you can do that.
For me both magic and dreaming up stories are something I can’t completely stay away from. I have tried, doesn’t work. They are kind of like a constant itch. I need to scratch, from time to time. And I seem to function better otherwise too when I do scratch.
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In my case even when I didn’t believe in magic, it believed in me. It is better (as Pohjalaienen wrote) to find the rules.
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Heh. I did an exercise in self hypnosis. Worked so well I closed the book and never, ever tried something like that again. Didn’t even read any further. As long as the inside of my head keep on working reasonably well, I’m not going to fool with it.
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Weird. I’ve tried it, but was never able to do better than use it to get to sleep.
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I have used self-hypnosis to calm my thoughts enough to sleep. ;-) I consider it successful then. ;-) You don’t know how strong those thoughts are and how easy it is to become an insomniac. Yea– for self-hypnosis. Now I am terrified of allowing control to someone else so I do NOT try hypnosis.
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I do the same thing with biofeedback. Biofeedback is GOOD! You’d be surprised how much you can do if you learn it well.
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Self-hypnosis (or possibly bio-feedback) is great for pain too. Only time it didn’t work was when I had a tooth ache. But I held off with pain pills for at least three days– same with the pinched nerve.
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“Obsessive” reading? I didn’t know there was any other kind
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I have a mundane logical reason why your craving research works out to bring a story much later. I will not tell you why because I don’t want to screw with your processes. Your Writing and Subjects are proceeding along the path I wish you to continue
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I’m not talking about pen names. That’s a problem all its own. Humans are, as you know, weird people. You know this particularly if you’re one. What I’ve found with pen names – caveat emptor – is that once you give something a name, it acquires its own personality and ideas, PARTICULARLY if it’s secret.
*nod*
If Foxfier wasn’t an intimate part of me, she’d be a character. She’s not even a mask– just a handle. It goes back to when I created her, for a star trek fan board RPG– she wasn’t someone else, she was just a translation of me so that I could hang out on a Federations Star Ship with friends. (Got a bit more realistic from there.)
If you do role playing games, you might even find that characters you put too much of yourself into– while not keeping them you— start to change you.
Makes me wonder if the classic trope about Vampires never using good pseudonyms might be subconsciously related– Terry Pratchett’s “spell the name backwards” isn’t the only example, Dracula clones are ever using variations of “dragon” or “serpent” in their pseudonyms. Perhaps the undead are poised in a spot in our minds where they HAVE to have a strong true-name or it starts messing with them.
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“Perhaps the undead are poised in a spot in our minds where they HAVE to have a strong true-name or it starts messing with them.”
The power of naming things was given to The First, in the Garden. What if the name shapes the thing, all the more so for the supernatural. What if a character had the ability to Name things, to give them a True Name to which they must conform?
The vampires Puddin’ and Tweetie Pie would forever curse that character, but their curses would have no effect.
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I really believe that– by the way– in a small way we name our children. I have seen what happens when a child is named poorly.
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I can’t believe someone else hasn’t posted this yet
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Mom was telling me “I should have named you Jennifer” for YEARS because she thought that my own name was too exotic and was the primary reason why I turned out so strange.
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:-)
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Oooh…. we inherited his curse; could we have some aspect of his responsibility in naming?
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Well, words and names are important, that’s for certain. Fortunately there are lots of good names out there, and even a good nickname can improve life.
I dunno, though. I’ve never really noticed any difference in my handles’ behavior versus my own. (I’m not terribly imaginative, though, in the acting-out way.)
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My internet name comes from an obscure 80’s song that opens with the lines:
“I was going to a party the other night, but I didn’t want anyone to recognize me, so I decided to change my name to Gnardo.”
I have bit more casual voice as Gnardo, but otherwise it is just a mask.
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The power in names seems almost ubiquitous across both times and cultures. We see it even now, with Orwell’s warnings and the progressives’ tendency to obscure through communication.
I study and write about Celtic culture, and the power of the true name is a common thread. Knowing your own true name gives you presence; it roots you in the land, in the culture, and in the community. It makes you more real than other people. But if someone else discovers your true name, they gain power over you, and can command you and control you.
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Doesn’t being required to deliver to the government your true name (birth certificate) constitute a violation of religious freedom?
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It all depends on how your religion treats your given name. Most of the time, it is not your true name, so the government doesn’t get any more control over you than what they already have. These days, that’s a lot, but still, surprisingly (and fleetingly, perhaps), not total.
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Grin.
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Well, we all know what that great philosopher of felinity, T.S.Elliott, said about the Naming of Cats (which is indeed a difficult matter). “But above and beyond, there’s still one name left over/ And that is the name that you never will guess./ A name that no human research can discover/ But the cat himself knows and will never confess.”
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My issue is that I did writing service and related stuff for so long, now I want to get back into fiction writing I’m having the devils own time in shutting OFF the editor in my head.
I have a premise for a storyline, but everytime I start pantsing it I start nitpicking on punctuation, grammar, and sentence construction. I mean, seriously – diagramming a sentence?!?
So I’m struggling to regain the creative flow I had a decade and more ago, struggling to develop a plot when my previous S/S style was pantsing, and generally getting frustrated with the process. But I can’t NOT write – at least something.
And I’m enjoying the various topics you and the responders cover, especially where it relates to writing creatively for publication.
But when I’d rather mow the lawn (I have allergies to grass & weeds) than sit down to attempt a plot, I think I need more than simply advice.
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This is going to sound completely insane, but I’ve done it — Kris Rusch gave me this advice and it worked.
Name your inner editor — mine is Bob — and make up a picture of him. Then put up signs saying “No Bob past this threshold” around your writing place. (substitute Bob for whatever you call your editor.)
It shouldn’t work but it does.
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See, I have a real editor named Jeff, so my inner editor is permanently on hiatus. Only the occasional grammar or spelling worm gets into my brain occasionally.
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He’s pretty good, too. Hardly anything popped out at me while reading Prime Target.
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That… gets a little weird for me when it’s the pen name that’s the writer and my real name that’s the Editor from Hell.
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Some people find it helps to use a font that can’t be read. Then you can’t see what you typed.
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Well, I DO have Tengwar Quenya available on the WP8 I use. BUt it would probably induce me to watch the trilogy again.
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Thanks for all the suggestions. They can’t hurt, and I’ll try them at least. I guess the best advice I ever received was from Avram Davidson. Just sit down and write. Fix it later.
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Interesting– I am in the middle of rune, Norse mythology, and magic craving reading. Plus gateways and dimensions. I am reading about seven different books (one chapter from each book at a time) because I gotta. ;-) I think I am getting ready to start writing story again (it is a little like pregnancy, I am thinking–) (Oh yea, specifically Norse magic.)
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It has fascinated me how the male giants in the Norse myths are pretty much beatable – well, except Skymir who uses sorcery, but the giantesses are implacable as fate.
The myths always make me feel like I am sounding out a sunken city in a muddy lake using only a bamboo pole from a boat. All this information means something, it was originally organized somehow, but you only get touches, interpretations and analogies.
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I don’t know– I began to learn Norse mythology almost fifteen years ago mainly because I wanted to know about my ancestry; however, I feel like I only know glimpses of the real thing– so I guess we are in the same boat ;-) I do know that the runes in certain practicioners’ hands have a kind of energy that works.
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Right now the craving readings are on true-crime cases – bizarre ones, like the Black Dahlia case – and paranormal activity. That these are hitting together is making me feel skivvy. I’m not sure I want to write anything that presents that way. (OTOH isn’t part of what I do to bring stuff into the light? It’s what I try to do at any rate.)
Tried podcasts? TuneIn has a lot of stuff in the “paranormal” area, including the “skeptic” sub-strata that’s really good if you want to have something to fall short of for head-bangingly bad “disproving” of paranormal stuff. Funkybaldie is on Winamp had has some really good shows.
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How about listening to Art Bell?
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The show he made famous is pretty..um… protective of their shows, so if I had any specific suggestions, I wouldn’t share them. I surely wouldn’t write the name of the show in conjuction with someone that rebroadcasts it, for example. They sell subscriptions to the show, but even I can’t bring myself to ask for it for a birthday present– too many sub-par shows, although I am on the mailing list and listen to stations that have it all the time. Their home station has a GREAT military show called “Dark, Secret Place.”
IYKWIMAITYM.
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that is true– I know someone who had met Art Bell– he is very protective of his shows.
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I was thinking more of listening to the show to see the format.
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Not that I would advocate it, or list the name of websites where it might be found, but I’m quite sure that just like everything else you could find pirated copies if you looked.
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One of the joys of the internet is finding stations that stream at odd times, too.
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“Welcome to the writer’s lounge. I’m Parker. The man in the wingback chair is Mr. Cross.”
“Pen names, obviously.”
Parker smiled, “Of course.”
In the corner sat another man, scribbling furiously at the page, and every time he reached the edge of the page, his pen would strike his drinking glass, ringing it loudly.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Mr Underwood. So, have you decided?”
“Call me Bic.”
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ROFL! :D
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Sarah, I’m glad you’re feeling better.
Per your instructions in a recent post, I joined the site on April 30 by making a donation and specifying the purpose in the accompanying message. However, a password to the subscriber’s space has not arrived. Please send it when you can because “open sesame” doesn’t work. Your record of the donation should contain my real name and an email address ending in somethingorotheraps.com. Thanks.
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I shall, I shall — before I put up new stuff. :)
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Apropos of “the other writer,” I was outlining book three of the WIP (things I think will happen) and discovered that there’s yet another book in this series lurking just around the bend. Which I think is where I will end up before this is over. NB, fellow writers: do not base books on people with long, well documented, adventurous careers. Meanwhile, my primary MC is patting her foot and muttering about having places to go and people to shoot.
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I read a lot of history. Not always craving, just feeding more stuff in.
The real great wonder of it is when it knocks your block off. Which among other things alerts you to what you need to research when you focus.
(Other things pontificated about here — at length.)
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