The Persistence of Control

I can’t stop thinking about Control. I’m not sure why. I think it has to do with the movie’s intense inwardness — it’s a demonstration of “show, don’t tell” in the way it simply observes Ian Curtis in the last four years of his life. There’s no sense that the filmmaker, Anton Corbijn, has an axe to grind; there’s nothing in the script, direction or performances that says, “Here’s what you’re supposed to think about this.”

I’m not sure I can write with that kind of detachment, but I’m fairly certain I shouldn’t try. My thing is to write how something feels, how it seems to my character. Because of that, when I’m in that character’s head, I’m a partisan. I’ve taken that character’s side. The hard part is that I’m also aware of what other characters think and feel, but I still have to write the scene from the POV character’s side.

But I still think I can take something from the movie. I think I can borrow its confidence in its quiet. It’s willing to be still and low-key, resisting any impulse to reach out and grab the viewer by the lapels. It’s willing to risk loss of attention, because it trusts that it’s audience won’t lose interest. That trust in my audience is the lesson this movie can teach me.

Drive-By

Earlier today, I watched Control, the movie about Ian Curtis of Joy Division. Excellent movie, with a rightfully praised performance by Sam Riley. The thing that impressed me most is the subtlety of his transformation into someone whose profound unhappiness led him to commit suicide at the age of 23.

Curtis killed himself before I became aware of Joy Division, but I was a fan of New Order, the name that band took as they continued in the wake of Curtis’s death. The thing is, I love, love, love, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, Joy Division’s biggest single. I didn’t know, though, that it was Joy Division — or maybe that knowledge just never stuck.

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I have an author to add to New To Me: Emily Arsenault for her debut, The Broken Teaglass. Publisher’s Weekly put it better than I can: “In Emily Arsenault’s quirky, arresting debut, two young lexicographers find clues to an old murder case hidden in the files at their dictionary company…The result is an absorbing, offbeat mystery–meets–coming-of-age novel that’s as sweet as it is suspenseful.”

One of the things I particularly liked about the book is that it demonstrates the importance of context. Quotes that seem to mean one thing, to have one tone, have a different meaning, a different tone in a different context.

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Things have been difficult on the writing front. I came closer than I have before to quitting Dragonfly — I was convinced its problems were insurmountable, or at least would mean cutting roughly 25% of the existing work. That made me sad, made me feel as if the wretched thing will never be finished.

Fortunately, before I got out my machete, I got to the heart of the real problem…and figured out the real solution. Whew! So now it’s just a matter of implementing it…

I Got Sick!

I never get sick. Well, not seriously and not for long. It’s actually kind of freakish. I also never get fevers — I can count on the fingers of one hand the fevers I’ve had since childhood, and that includes the two times I had appendicitis.

I got sick this week. Not seriously — it was a very mild case of flu. But it was enough to make concentration impossible and it kept me out of work (though that was more about not infecting anyone else than about being too ill to work). So I’ve barely been writing, and I haven’t been thinking, and I’ve been reading people I’ve already read.

For years, I was somewhat against the BICHOK school of writing, the one that says that some part of every day must be spent with Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard. I was a bursty writer, one who would think and think and then write in a giant burst of at least a thousand words.

But things have changed in the last year. I’ve spent a lot of it writing at least 100 words a day, almost every day of the week, and if I didn’t write 100 words of new narrative, I spent at least five minutes of active planning and brainstorming on paper (because you can plan in your head forever; writing it down is serious business). Being sick enough that I couldn’t focus derailed me, and I’m finding it a little tough to get back on track. I’ve reached the limits of brainstorming, for now at least; now it’s time to get back to writing.

New New Shiny Makes Old New

I’m vastly entertained by the senselessness of that title, partly, I think, because I’m more than a little tired.

For my birthday, the beloved got me a new mp3 player, a 4GB Sansa Clip+ in blue, my favorite color. All it really does is play music, which is a good thing, because that’s what I want it to do. I don’t need or want all the other bells and whistles (I’m looking at you, Apple), and I certainly don’t want to pay for them, especially when the sound quality isn’t as good (at least to my ears).

One of the things the Clip+ has is a radio receiver that’s good enough for my purposes. I’ve been listening to the radio on the bus the last couple of nights, and over the course of the bus ride home, I’ve heard songs I thought I knew really well, things like R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.”

It’s like hearing completely different songs. There’s all kinds of stuff going on that I didn’t hear before with my sad little speakers and headphones, a whole layer of lusciousness I missed out on. There was another song tonight that sounded so different that I thought, “Is this a remake?”

I’m not sure what this has to do with anything — I just think it’s cool.

Head ‘Sploding

The problem with really fabulous brainstorming — a problem I’m just discovering — is that eventually your head starts to feel like it will explode, because there’s no room for all the ideas you’re coming up with. I’ve been writing things down, but I think I’m not writing enough down, because a lot of stuff is still inside my head.

I also think I’m reaching the saturation point, where I’ll have so many ideas I’ll just get paralyzed. I need to organize what I have so far and go with it. There’s still a whole lot I don’t know about the story — especially the second half — but I’m starting to suspect that’s a strength, not a weakness. If I don’t know what I want to have happen, I can let the story go where it needs to go. That is, I’m not going to crush the life out of it by trying to force it to go in a particular direction.

I also wonder if it might not be best to sketch things in. Scott Westerfield and Justine Larbalestier are writing a series of NaNo-related blog posts — his on the odd dates in November, hers on the even — and this one from Sunday the first is part of the reason I’m thinking about sketching the scenes I have and even sketching scenes I don’t have, just to see what happens.

Whatever I end up doing, I won’t be starting it tonight. Head full, me tired, sleep soon. (Plus, very early morning wake-up for workout with trainer.)

You Got A Friend

I’m lucky enough to work with one of my best friends. In many ways, he’s like my brother — we had that kind of relationship almost from the moment we met. (And since his last name is the same as my mother’s maiden name, we figure we’re related somehow…even though there are a bazillion people out there with the same last name.)

Today I was telling him about NaNoWriMo and KaBraiMo, and he said, “We should brainstorm together.” At first I was skeptical — he’s not a writer — but he’s creative and clever, and he’s one of my best friends. So I went for it.

He had all kinds of wild hare ideas, which are the best kind when you’re brainstorming, even when they freak you out a little bit. My initial reaction was to resist, but I kept thinking about them, and I think they’re starting to break up some of the rigid thinking that’s been holding me back. I’m not sure I’ll use what he gave me — he’s thinking movies and big, visual battle-y stuff, which isn’t something I’m likely to write. But I think I’ll use the underlying ideas, the biggest one being the idea I need to let my big ideas play out in big ways. I need to stop thinking small.

Riding home on the bus tonight, I realized that one of the reasons I’ve been thinking small is that I’m not sure I have the skill to write the big ideas in a big way.

Only one way to find out: try it.

KaBraiMo

Today began NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where participants aim themselves at writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I can’t tell you how many of my writing friends do this every year, including this year. Because I’m a competitive soul who hates to be left out of everything, I’m always tempted by this. I’ve never done it, partly because my writing process doesn’t really lend itself to doing this kind of thing.

However…

I’m at a crossroads with the wip. I don’t know what happens next — I don’t even have an inkling. Well, I did figure out the meat of one scene, but other than that? Nada.

While I was mulling things over yesterday morning – which is when I got my one scene idea — it occurred to me that I could do my own version of NaNoWriMo. I could take the month of November and just write whatever: snippets of scenes, thoughts, ideas, whole scenes if they came… The key would be that I wouldn’t edit, I wouldn’t even read what I’d done. This is pure brainstorming: Katy Brainstorming Month, or KaBraiMo. (I hear echoes of “Ka-boom!” when I say it to myself, which I kind of like.)

One of the things that’s always stopped me from doing full-on NaNoWriMo is the fear — or maybe concern is a better word — that I’d write a whole bunch, but that fixing it all would take more time than if I’d followed my usual path. That it would be counterproductive.

The difference here is that I’m stuck. I can mull and think and write notes to myself, or I can just write whatever comes into my head, with the idea that even when you’re heading in the wrong direction, you’re not stuck, and I’m much more likely to recognize a wrong direction if I start heading toward it, than if I stand here and think, “Maybe…”

Anyway, I’ll see how it goes…

Gah!

Nothing much to say. In the last week to ten days, I’ve been getting sleepy earlier than – I’m not sure the shortening days aren’t part of it. Whatever the reason, I’m conking out before 11:00 PM, night after night after night. Weird.

I finished the rewrite of that scene that I had to yank, and I’m very pleased with it. Until the book is done, everything’s provisional, but as itself, the scene works. It might not work in the book as a whole, but that’s something I won’t know until I have a whole book.

I’ve passed the 50k words mark, so technically I’m past the halfway point. I say “technically” because I’m not sure I can write this story in 100k words. The answer to that is also something I won’t know until I’m done.

I’m not sure what I’m writing next; I’m stumped in every direction I can think of. I know there’s a scene where Kerlis has to find something out, but I haven’t got the least clue how. I don’t have any ideas for how to embed that moment of learning. Or what happens as a result. I’ve kicked around a few ideas, but they all seem very bleah to me.

What I really need is to print out what I have and look at it as a whole — see how it’s shaped, find clues for the next stretch in what I already have, get a feel for where it’s going. I used to know, but then my imagination made a detour, and now I’m feeling lost. I need to stop a moment and get my bearings.

But first I think I need to sleep.

A Good Day…

Today, I got myself back over the 50k mark, making up everything I lost when I turfed out the Scene That Wasn’t Working, Latest Round. That makes it a good day. Even better, I ended the scene in a place that’ll be easy to pick up tomorrow.

Yep, a good day.

Fingerprints, or Writers Who Have Influenced Me

The other day, I had a powerful urge to re-read Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree. It’s been years and years since I read it — years and years since I read a Mary Stewart romantic suspense novel all the way through, in fact. My copy is decades old — the price on the cover is $0.75, the glue holding it together is dying, so the amber-yellow pages are loose, and they’re crumbling at the edges. I’m afraid to handle the thing, so I bought a new copy.

I’m about halfway through and one thing I’m noticing is how much I owe the flow of my own descriptive writing to Stewart. Her fingerprints are all over my writing. I’m surprised by that, somehow; I guess I didn’t realize until this week how influential she’s been.

This isn’t the first time I’ve read a beloved author and thought, “Oh, that’s where I get that from…” A few years ago, I opened Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven, read the prologue and realized that I’d absorbed her prose rhythms.

What I’ve done — absorbed ways of handling language – is different than plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking someone else’s work — their words and ideas – and using them as if they’re you’re own. The words I use, the ideas about plot and character and setting, are my own. It’s just that I’ve absorbed ways of managing those words to express those ideas from writers who’ve come before me.

And I have to say, I think I picked pretty good role models.