Phew, it's been more than two weeks, I know. This was not my intent in this endeavor at all. I just got really into Myke Cole's Fortress Frontier (HIGHLY recommend the book, easily one of my top ten of 2013) and Michael Lewis' The Blind Side (Not done with it yet, I'll explain why in a minute, but it's phenomenal). Plus I started the three week summer writing institute where I teach (they'll be a blog post on that in the near future) and did some writing. But I'm going to effort on the blogging a little more and I'm back to this, so let's talk about Chapters 3-5.
This section builds off the ominous tidings of Chapter 2's cliffhanger, but any response to that isn't addressed right away, mostly because it's obvious Tanis doesn't want to talk about what it means either, this moment of tension is avoided by the arrival of out final three members of our companions and they may be the most interesting of the characters, to me at least.
Let's start with Goldmoon and Riverwind, the barbarians. Weis and Hickman do something interesting here that I always liked. Barbarian is such an ambiguous term in the context of epic fantasy. In my mind, I go in one of three directions: the Conan route, the faux Viking route or the faceless wildman rabble of the dark overlord route. Now, there's a longer post in me about these tropes but this isn't the place for it. Weis and Hickman go in a different direction and there barbarians don't seem to fit within the tropes of epic fantasy. These barbarians are plainsmen (read: Native Americans), but with swords! But they ruin that by making the barbarian princess a blonde haired, blue eyed beauty that fell in love with a tall, dark warrior. I didn't find her interesting when I was a kid and I don't know, but I was always fascinated with Riverwind. We don't get much of an impression of him, we don't even sense the connection these two have beyond that of servant and master. But these characters aren't the real stars (though I do know that they will get their chance later), the real star of this section is the introduction of Sturm Brightblade.
Weis and Hickman know their tropes and how to play with them. Sturm is presented to us as the "knight in shining armor" type. He's the definition of the D&D paladin (I know, I know...f**king game mechanics) from the moment we meet him. It's almost cliched from the "straight back" to his formality to the fact that he shows up wearing his full armor. Here's where having spent all these years reading Martin spoil me. I scream at the book...there's no way that Sturm is going to be traipsing around in full plate armor, especially antique armor. But beyond that, the most interesting thing about this section comes from when Sturm is asked if he was a knight now and he doesn't answer. No one seems to note this except for Tanis who says nothing about it. It's a wonderful moment that I probably missed when I was younger. It's a great bit of character in there for us to realize that he's actually a fraud. And it's obviously killing him.
Hickman and Weis introduce one of the backbones of the world that's been created around them: the Knights of Solamnia. I'm a big fan of the Knights and love the politics that get brought up in later books, but for now it's merely stated that there is a great amount of distrust and disdain for the Knights, almost as much for them as the barbarians. And it introduces us to a great little tidbit of worldbuilding by the authors: the sweeping mustaches. I love this. I know that might be silly, but it's a perfect little touch that stands out. We're not given an explanation (yet), just shown that they are an important part of Solamnic culture. I'm curious to see how my memories of the Knights compares to what I read. (And I do know that the Knights don't really make an appearance until book two.)
What comes next in the book is another thing that sets it apart. Usually, this is the part of the epic fantasy novel where the heroes band together and decide they are going to stop the great evil. Not so fast, my friend. And I like this. One of their own makes a mistake and inadvertently hurts someone (a cliched phony religious zealot) who is healed by what appears to be lost magic: the magic of healing. Then our band is on the run, the barbarians that have mysteriously acquired this magic. Then comes a series of what is obviously transcribed game encounters as the enemies pursue their escape. It's well done and intense with the right amount of gravity and levity as the companions escape, leading to the major revelation of the chapter: there are constellations missing...those of the most powerful old gods aren't there anymore.
More portents and mysteries. The first 60 pages are as good as I remember them, even with a more critical (and maybe cynical) eye. It feels like I'm reading a good story and that's all that matters. I feel like I enjoy experiencing the story through Tanis's POV, again he's the most obvious gateway character and it works. The thing that stands out so much about these books is that these folks are normal people. They aren't kings, dukes, regents or anything like that. They are the blue collar people (okay, Goldmoon is a princess but I'm not counting her right now because she's not REALLY part of the crew yet) of this world and that's not something we're used to seeing.
Next up: Chapters 6 & 7: What do our heroes do now?
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Dragons of Autumn Twlight: Old Man, Chapters One and Two
So we begin. I actually read it this afternoon while feeding my son at my father in law's house and when I finished I went swimming with my daughter and niece. As I floated in the pool I contemplated just how I was going to tackle this task. I knew that I had to set some kind of rules, but I wasn't sure what those rules were.
I knew that I was feeling nostalgia for the books, but I did read them when I was in middle school. That was almost 30 years ago. I'm not much of a re-reader and that's gotten even worse as I've gotten older, time gotten tighter and all the different online resources out there make re-reading less of a necessity when it comes to reading a series. I can just check Wikipedia to skim details and get right back into a series. Anyway, I tried to push out what I remembered about the books so not to completely spoil myself, as silly as that sounds, though there are things that I do remember as they are indelible in my mind. So I guess that was the first rule.
The second rule, and I know that I'm going to break this, is not to get all flustered when obvious game mechanics appear in the story or something reads like it is straight off the gaming table. Let me make a quick confession. I love D&D. I collected the manuals and am still obsessed with the worlds, but I've never played a single game of D&D. Never rolled a die, never listened to a game master, nothing. (I'm also not much of a video gamer, other than sports games, but that's a blog post for another time...I know, what a waste of a geek.) All this means is that while I enjoy these stories, the necessity of including obvious game mechanics or desktop RPG elements into the story grates on me. It's a problem I had with another very popular fantasy books I recently read that was almost a paint by numbers D&D session transcription...a very good one mind you, but still, after a while it made me skim huge chunks of the book. But I'm not here to talk about that book, I'm here to talk about DOAT (as I'm going to refer to it from here on out).
Old Man
One of the huge spoilers that cannot be avoided once you have read all the books is who the Old Man is...and I'm not just talking about him being a guy named Fizban. He's the avatar for the most powerful of the returning Gods. But let's be honest...he's Gandalf....he's Merlin...and he's an obvious agent of some great power wrapped up in the disguise of a crazy old man. It's always an interesting trope to play with and it's done pretty well here and brings up a great potential theme (already) in the writing: fate vs. free will. Is it the fate of these characters to save the world? Do they really have a choice or has it already been decided? It's one of the great questions that every "quest fantasy" asks and this one does it very interestingly because it's obvious that these characters are just pawns in the story.
Chapter One And Two
The thing that I think about as I'm rereading this book as a writer especially is audience. As I said earlier in this post, I read the book nearly 30 years ago when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I'm guessing that was lowest end of the target audience. As I can figure, we're probably looking at a target of 16-25 year olds for an audience when these books were written. (This is a gross generalization I know, so please, relax.) I look at these books and wonder if they'd be marketed as traditional or YA fantasy today. (Maybe even that nebulous New Adult. Anyway, the two first characters we meet are elderly: Fizban (though we don't know his name yet) and Flint, one of our protagonists. (I will talk about using multiple POVs later in this series but not now.)We meet two of our other protagonists, Tanis and Tasslehoff (there will, in all likelihood be a separate entry for Tas, but much later in the series). And thus begins the POV shifting.
In most modern fantasies it has become common practice to at least give us at least a physical break in the page between POV shifts, more common than not is to give one character their own chapter, but not always. Not in this book, they might give you a paragraph to break. Anyway, I digress.
Let's talk quickly about Tanis. Tanis is our gateway character. He's the hero. A half-elf ranger....we're wading into game mechanics because I know that Tanis is a fighter not a ranger, but go with me on this one....was the default for many of us. Not human. Powerful but somewhat balanced. It would have been easy for him to descend into Aragorn-ville if the writers allowed him to be, but they don't. Already you can tell there is something about Tanis that makes him more than he appears.
There is a throw away line, almost, in the chapter where the writers talk about his beard. I obviously didn't notice it the first time I'd read it, but it really stuck with me as I read it this time, even in the first chapter. What a great symbol the writers are using, and I'm interested to see how this plays out for the rest of the books. The beard means so many things that you can't ignore it's significance. It represents the reprehensible part of his heritage, the part that he doesn't want to identify with but he has to because there are "lands not friendly to those of elvish blood." All this sets up a terrific conflict: Tanis's inner conflict to identify which society he truly belongs, if he does at all.
Anyway, the opening chapter descends into a nicely done infodump that tells us why these characters have been away from one another so long and a quick "random encounter" from one of those charts in the game books, though introducing Fewmaster Toede is terrific and our heroes dispatching the mooks quite easily but leaving them with all sorts of questions.
The second chapter transitions to the typical "meeting of the heroes" in the tavern. It hits all the notes just right, and I'm not saying this as a criticism either...more like a good musician hitting the right notes. The "dark tidings" vibe is well done within the story and the thing that struck me was the lack of detail in some of the description. Being a Martin fan and having so much time in Randland in the last few years, there were several lines that made me chuckle where I thought about the way Martin or Jordan would have written them. The one that made me stop was when the protags notice a group of guards "armed to the teeth." Martin and Jordan would've taken up at least a paragraph to describe the weapons, armor and uniforms of these characters. Instead, Weis and Hickman don't. This economy of words is nice and makes me think if this is something I can do too.
Within this we get two terrific fantasy tropes played very differently, one perfectly, one not so much. The one that doesn't go as well is related to game mechanics again...I know, I know, I promised I wouldn't harp on it, but I am, sort of....magic comes at a great cost. I'm kind of tired of that trope (some of that coming from the book I was talking about earlier but I digress) and prefer the Harry Potter, magic is genetic kind of magic system. The Vancian (if you aren't sure, Google it, I'm sure someone has a blog post or definition of it somewhere that can help you understand it) System devalues the power of magic in my mind. (There is a blog post in me about the absurdity of "wizards are physically weak" requirement but this isn't the place for it.) These books are always going to be tied to the D&D magic system and that's going to give me fits. And it's one of the reasons why Raistlin frustrates me. He doesn't work within the context of D&D. He's a great character, but he doesn't fit the rules of the world, they just wanted to make him creepy for creepy's sake. (Okay, part of my judgement is coming from my own knowledge of the rest of the series and magic users in other D&D tie in novels.) Creepy would've been fine, if they were consistent.
The thing they do right is the last few paragraphs of the chapter. One of their band has broken the oath. Broken oaths are another building block of good fantasy. And it sets up so much of the rest of the start of the story. So many questions that we need to answer: Who is Kitaria? Why is she sending word to Tanis? Why is he so upset about the letter? Why is she breaking the oath? It's just well done.
For the most part, the first 30 pages were about what I expected with a few surprises I don't think my 13 year old self would have noticed. I'm going to watch for the way the beard symbol plays out. I think it's pretty important for Tanis, who I am paying close attention to, seeing what I can learn about him as a character since he was the character that I liked the most when I was younger.
Next post: Chapters 3-6. Post might be up Sunday. Keep your eyes out.
I knew that I was feeling nostalgia for the books, but I did read them when I was in middle school. That was almost 30 years ago. I'm not much of a re-reader and that's gotten even worse as I've gotten older, time gotten tighter and all the different online resources out there make re-reading less of a necessity when it comes to reading a series. I can just check Wikipedia to skim details and get right back into a series. Anyway, I tried to push out what I remembered about the books so not to completely spoil myself, as silly as that sounds, though there are things that I do remember as they are indelible in my mind. So I guess that was the first rule.
The second rule, and I know that I'm going to break this, is not to get all flustered when obvious game mechanics appear in the story or something reads like it is straight off the gaming table. Let me make a quick confession. I love D&D. I collected the manuals and am still obsessed with the worlds, but I've never played a single game of D&D. Never rolled a die, never listened to a game master, nothing. (I'm also not much of a video gamer, other than sports games, but that's a blog post for another time...I know, what a waste of a geek.) All this means is that while I enjoy these stories, the necessity of including obvious game mechanics or desktop RPG elements into the story grates on me. It's a problem I had with another very popular fantasy books I recently read that was almost a paint by numbers D&D session transcription...a very good one mind you, but still, after a while it made me skim huge chunks of the book. But I'm not here to talk about that book, I'm here to talk about DOAT (as I'm going to refer to it from here on out).
Old Man
One of the huge spoilers that cannot be avoided once you have read all the books is who the Old Man is...and I'm not just talking about him being a guy named Fizban. He's the avatar for the most powerful of the returning Gods. But let's be honest...he's Gandalf....he's Merlin...and he's an obvious agent of some great power wrapped up in the disguise of a crazy old man. It's always an interesting trope to play with and it's done pretty well here and brings up a great potential theme (already) in the writing: fate vs. free will. Is it the fate of these characters to save the world? Do they really have a choice or has it already been decided? It's one of the great questions that every "quest fantasy" asks and this one does it very interestingly because it's obvious that these characters are just pawns in the story.
Chapter One And Two
The thing that I think about as I'm rereading this book as a writer especially is audience. As I said earlier in this post, I read the book nearly 30 years ago when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I'm guessing that was lowest end of the target audience. As I can figure, we're probably looking at a target of 16-25 year olds for an audience when these books were written. (This is a gross generalization I know, so please, relax.) I look at these books and wonder if they'd be marketed as traditional or YA fantasy today. (Maybe even that nebulous New Adult. Anyway, the two first characters we meet are elderly: Fizban (though we don't know his name yet) and Flint, one of our protagonists. (I will talk about using multiple POVs later in this series but not now.)We meet two of our other protagonists, Tanis and Tasslehoff (there will, in all likelihood be a separate entry for Tas, but much later in the series). And thus begins the POV shifting.
In most modern fantasies it has become common practice to at least give us at least a physical break in the page between POV shifts, more common than not is to give one character their own chapter, but not always. Not in this book, they might give you a paragraph to break. Anyway, I digress.
Let's talk quickly about Tanis. Tanis is our gateway character. He's the hero. A half-elf ranger....we're wading into game mechanics because I know that Tanis is a fighter not a ranger, but go with me on this one....was the default for many of us. Not human. Powerful but somewhat balanced. It would have been easy for him to descend into Aragorn-ville if the writers allowed him to be, but they don't. Already you can tell there is something about Tanis that makes him more than he appears.
There is a throw away line, almost, in the chapter where the writers talk about his beard. I obviously didn't notice it the first time I'd read it, but it really stuck with me as I read it this time, even in the first chapter. What a great symbol the writers are using, and I'm interested to see how this plays out for the rest of the books. The beard means so many things that you can't ignore it's significance. It represents the reprehensible part of his heritage, the part that he doesn't want to identify with but he has to because there are "lands not friendly to those of elvish blood." All this sets up a terrific conflict: Tanis's inner conflict to identify which society he truly belongs, if he does at all.
Anyway, the opening chapter descends into a nicely done infodump that tells us why these characters have been away from one another so long and a quick "random encounter" from one of those charts in the game books, though introducing Fewmaster Toede is terrific and our heroes dispatching the mooks quite easily but leaving them with all sorts of questions.
The second chapter transitions to the typical "meeting of the heroes" in the tavern. It hits all the notes just right, and I'm not saying this as a criticism either...more like a good musician hitting the right notes. The "dark tidings" vibe is well done within the story and the thing that struck me was the lack of detail in some of the description. Being a Martin fan and having so much time in Randland in the last few years, there were several lines that made me chuckle where I thought about the way Martin or Jordan would have written them. The one that made me stop was when the protags notice a group of guards "armed to the teeth." Martin and Jordan would've taken up at least a paragraph to describe the weapons, armor and uniforms of these characters. Instead, Weis and Hickman don't. This economy of words is nice and makes me think if this is something I can do too.
Within this we get two terrific fantasy tropes played very differently, one perfectly, one not so much. The one that doesn't go as well is related to game mechanics again...I know, I know, I promised I wouldn't harp on it, but I am, sort of....magic comes at a great cost. I'm kind of tired of that trope (some of that coming from the book I was talking about earlier but I digress) and prefer the Harry Potter, magic is genetic kind of magic system. The Vancian (if you aren't sure, Google it, I'm sure someone has a blog post or definition of it somewhere that can help you understand it) System devalues the power of magic in my mind. (There is a blog post in me about the absurdity of "wizards are physically weak" requirement but this isn't the place for it.) These books are always going to be tied to the D&D magic system and that's going to give me fits. And it's one of the reasons why Raistlin frustrates me. He doesn't work within the context of D&D. He's a great character, but he doesn't fit the rules of the world, they just wanted to make him creepy for creepy's sake. (Okay, part of my judgement is coming from my own knowledge of the rest of the series and magic users in other D&D tie in novels.) Creepy would've been fine, if they were consistent.
The thing they do right is the last few paragraphs of the chapter. One of their band has broken the oath. Broken oaths are another building block of good fantasy. And it sets up so much of the rest of the start of the story. So many questions that we need to answer: Who is Kitaria? Why is she sending word to Tanis? Why is he so upset about the letter? Why is she breaking the oath? It's just well done.
For the most part, the first 30 pages were about what I expected with a few surprises I don't think my 13 year old self would have noticed. I'm going to watch for the way the beard symbol plays out. I think it's pretty important for Tanis, who I am paying close attention to, seeing what I can learn about him as a character since he was the character that I liked the most when I was younger.
Next post: Chapters 3-6. Post might be up Sunday. Keep your eyes out.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Studying The Canon of Modern Fantasy: DRAGONS OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT
I've tweeted about this before and had some discussion on Twitter about my desire to "study" the modern fantasy canon and it begins today. I'm going to look at the "important" books that inspired my generation of fantasy writers and readers. It's a daunting task, I know, and everyone's list is bound to be different, but here's what I'm considering reading in the coming months:
The first series in queue is the original DRAGONLANCE series. There's a lot of nostalgia for Dragonlance in the recent months. It might be more important to my development as a writer than even JRR Tolkien. I know I've mentioned it on Facebook and there was this great article over on Pornokitsch about it.
My plan is to read 2-3 chapters a night, the blog about it. I'll probably do a quick summary of what was read, some analysis (to my English teacher friends, do I dare use a Well Developed Paragraph in these essays?) and finally discuss the influence that the story has over me as a writer. I'm not going to do this with every book/series, but I felt that Dragonlance was so important to me that I'd give it a try.
Comments are welcome and appreciated from any and all of you. I'll be linking blog posts to Twitter and Facebook as well in hopes of involving other fans.
I'm a little nervous about this because I have such fond memories of the books, I'm afraid that the older, wiser and more well-read me is going to pick it apart. I'm hoping it's not.
So keep your eyes out and let's roll.
- The Original Dragonlance Trilogy
- The Belgariad
- Wheel of Time (I'm done through book 5)
- The Original Shannara
- The Song of the Lioness (EDITED) (I'm done with the first three books)
- The Queen's Thief
The first series in queue is the original DRAGONLANCE series. There's a lot of nostalgia for Dragonlance in the recent months. It might be more important to my development as a writer than even JRR Tolkien. I know I've mentioned it on Facebook and there was this great article over on Pornokitsch about it.
My plan is to read 2-3 chapters a night, the blog about it. I'll probably do a quick summary of what was read, some analysis (to my English teacher friends, do I dare use a Well Developed Paragraph in these essays?) and finally discuss the influence that the story has over me as a writer. I'm not going to do this with every book/series, but I felt that Dragonlance was so important to me that I'd give it a try.
Comments are welcome and appreciated from any and all of you. I'll be linking blog posts to Twitter and Facebook as well in hopes of involving other fans.
I'm a little nervous about this because I have such fond memories of the books, I'm afraid that the older, wiser and more well-read me is going to pick it apart. I'm hoping it's not.
So keep your eyes out and let's roll.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Post WIP Hangover
On Tuesday I finished the first draft of my SEASONS OF DESTINY prequel novella and for some reason I'm "feeling" it the last two days. I'm just kind of in a daze and not really sure what to do next. It's the end of the school year, so that should be consuming me, but I've put in all my grades and I'm no quite ready to pack my room up (I'm moving rooms again next year), so I'm sitting at my desk with not much to do but let my mind dwell in the dark places again. I need to focus that energy into something, I'm just not sure what exactly.
I've got plenty to do, writing wise. I have a few short stories that I could probably take a second look at to submit to various places. I had the idea for another short story, set in the SOD universe as well, pop into my head yesterday. I've got a world primer/world guide that I want to write for my SISTERS rewrite not to mention a few short story ideas I have for that world. I've got an entire file of novel ideas that I could be working on, but I'm still in this hangover phase where I can't focus, can' settle down enough to work this out. I'm still kind of tired from the combination of the end of the school year and finishing the novella.
I feel this way whenever I finish a major project. I'm a marinater when it comes to rewrites too. I don't like jumping right back into a project until I've been away from it for a while, so rereading the novella won't work. I want a quick turnaround on this project, but not that quick. I want my betas to look at it, tell me what they think. Then I'll take a pass at it before sending it to my agent. In the mean time, I'm still looking for a project.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
I've got plenty to do, writing wise. I have a few short stories that I could probably take a second look at to submit to various places. I had the idea for another short story, set in the SOD universe as well, pop into my head yesterday. I've got a world primer/world guide that I want to write for my SISTERS rewrite not to mention a few short story ideas I have for that world. I've got an entire file of novel ideas that I could be working on, but I'm still in this hangover phase where I can't focus, can' settle down enough to work this out. I'm still kind of tired from the combination of the end of the school year and finishing the novella.
I feel this way whenever I finish a major project. I'm a marinater when it comes to rewrites too. I don't like jumping right back into a project until I've been away from it for a while, so rereading the novella won't work. I want a quick turnaround on this project, but not that quick. I want my betas to look at it, tell me what they think. Then I'll take a pass at it before sending it to my agent. In the mean time, I'm still looking for a project.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
Monday, June 3, 2013
Writing From The Dark Place
I met my wife in 1996. I was 23 and slinging bags of chips and soda bottles on the shelves of the grocery story I worked at. I would tell anyone that listened that I was going to be a famous writer someday. It was one of the most insane, confusing, convoluted, crazy and best summers of my life, a summer that I predicted would be a crazy summer. So crazy that I decided I wasn't going to write. Not that I was doing much actual writing. I mean, like I said, I was telling everyone I was a writer but I wasn't really doing the things a writer needs to do. I took a break because I had a feeling that I was going to be writing from a very dark place and I thought that was detrimental to my writing. I was so stupid and naive to think that. What I should have been doing is writing. Dealing with the chaos of my personal life and using that energy, as negative the source of it was, to put into my writing. There was a lot of emotion in those times that I could have used that is now lost in the ether and I'll never be able to harness again except in vague memory. The lens of memory is too foggy by the amazing times since then that I can't latch on to those feelings. It doesn't mean it didn't leave permanent scars or shades associated with those memories, it's just hard to express them in the same way now as I would have been able to then.
It's not about writing dark, it's more about writing from the dark place. It doesn't sound like there's a difference, but there is and it's not so subtle.
I'm a dark person in a lot of ways. I often joke that for my clownish, obnoxious exterior there is a deep, deep melancholy in me. I actually believe it's genetic on both sides of my family. I think that it explains the propensity of alcoholism, though I'm not a psychologist. What I didn't realize then that I do now is that writing from a dark place can be a good thing. It's a place to explore the recesses of out psyche and get them on paper. We may not always like what we see in what we write or, more importantly, what it reveals about ourselves, but it can be sort of therapeutic in a way. I think it expels some of the demons that haunt us and gives us a clearer mind to look at these issues. I talked about some of the motifs in my work and it's clear the sort of issues I'm working out in my own writing. Will I ever get the answers I'm looking for from writing? It's hard to say, but I might get a little insight into what makes me tick and help prod me into asking the questions of the people that I need to ask.
I'm in a bit of a dark patch now. I've had a hell of a 2013. New hip (really 2012 but hey), new kid, turning 40, etc, so I've had a lot to think about. Plus the end of the school year, especially in these times, usually puts you into a dark place anyway but this year has been tougher than usual. Not to mention some other things going on in my life that have pushed me into a dark place. And it's a place I need to attack and use in my writing. Again, we're not talking about writing something dark, but writing from a dark place and turning that energy into something good from bad. It's just a question of process now.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about the writing process today and reading about the rituals and routines of other writers: Maya Angelou, Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon among them. I'm fascinated how different they are. I fantasize about my non-working writing routine to the point where I have it completely planned in my head: wake up with the kids and bring them to school (in this fantasy my son is in school already, even in fantasy I'm realistic since I won't be achieving the level of success that allows me to cast aside one career for another until he's in school) then go to the gym. Maybe stop for breakfast after the workout then home by 10ish to write until 1 while I'm watching The Dan Patrick Show in my special writing room (in my fantasy I have a writing room and a new house). Stop for lunch, while I love that Roald Dahl would have a gin and tonic with shrimp, I think it'd be a simple meal (lunch is a meh meal for me, I'm more of a breakfast/supper guy) with some reading. Then I'd putter around the house doing laundry, mowing the lawn, etc until I had to get the kids. Hang out with them, make dinner, read/watch TV, homework time, etc. Then I'd go back to work from about 9-12. But that's all a fantasy now, a dream that I probably will never reach and each day it seems more elusive. (See there's the dark bits.)
For now, my process isn't as clean. I got no writing done this weekend, when I'd hoped to finish the first draft of my novella. But it didn't happen. And I'm not going to be dark about that. Back into the salt mines, I've got more to write.
It's not about writing dark, it's more about writing from the dark place. It doesn't sound like there's a difference, but there is and it's not so subtle.
I'm a dark person in a lot of ways. I often joke that for my clownish, obnoxious exterior there is a deep, deep melancholy in me. I actually believe it's genetic on both sides of my family. I think that it explains the propensity of alcoholism, though I'm not a psychologist. What I didn't realize then that I do now is that writing from a dark place can be a good thing. It's a place to explore the recesses of out psyche and get them on paper. We may not always like what we see in what we write or, more importantly, what it reveals about ourselves, but it can be sort of therapeutic in a way. I think it expels some of the demons that haunt us and gives us a clearer mind to look at these issues. I talked about some of the motifs in my work and it's clear the sort of issues I'm working out in my own writing. Will I ever get the answers I'm looking for from writing? It's hard to say, but I might get a little insight into what makes me tick and help prod me into asking the questions of the people that I need to ask.
I'm in a bit of a dark patch now. I've had a hell of a 2013. New hip (really 2012 but hey), new kid, turning 40, etc, so I've had a lot to think about. Plus the end of the school year, especially in these times, usually puts you into a dark place anyway but this year has been tougher than usual. Not to mention some other things going on in my life that have pushed me into a dark place. And it's a place I need to attack and use in my writing. Again, we're not talking about writing something dark, but writing from a dark place and turning that energy into something good from bad. It's just a question of process now.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about the writing process today and reading about the rituals and routines of other writers: Maya Angelou, Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon among them. I'm fascinated how different they are. I fantasize about my non-working writing routine to the point where I have it completely planned in my head: wake up with the kids and bring them to school (in this fantasy my son is in school already, even in fantasy I'm realistic since I won't be achieving the level of success that allows me to cast aside one career for another until he's in school) then go to the gym. Maybe stop for breakfast after the workout then home by 10ish to write until 1 while I'm watching The Dan Patrick Show in my special writing room (in my fantasy I have a writing room and a new house). Stop for lunch, while I love that Roald Dahl would have a gin and tonic with shrimp, I think it'd be a simple meal (lunch is a meh meal for me, I'm more of a breakfast/supper guy) with some reading. Then I'd putter around the house doing laundry, mowing the lawn, etc until I had to get the kids. Hang out with them, make dinner, read/watch TV, homework time, etc. Then I'd go back to work from about 9-12. But that's all a fantasy now, a dream that I probably will never reach and each day it seems more elusive. (See there's the dark bits.)
For now, my process isn't as clean. I got no writing done this weekend, when I'd hoped to finish the first draft of my novella. But it didn't happen. And I'm not going to be dark about that. Back into the salt mines, I've got more to write.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Movie Review: Magic Mike
No, seriously, I am going to write a review for a movie about male strippers.
I was seriously derided by member's of my wife's family for tweeting that I enjoyed this movie. It's no classic, that's for sure (and I'll get to that in a moment) but it was a pretty darn good movie. As I was watching it, I turned to my wife and said, "This reminds me a lot of 'Boogie Nights.'"
As I think on it, it was more like BOOGIE NIGHTS Light and I think that was part of the appeal to me. BOOGIE NIGHTS is one of my favorite movies of the last 20 years. I think it's a great example of a modern epic. No, really. We use the word epic all wrong these days but this isn't one of these times. BOOGIE NIGHTS was an epic movie along with being a modern classic. Make no mistake, MAGIC MIKE doesn't approach BN in scope or quality, but they are both similar movies exploring similar themes while playing with similar tropes, to varying degrees of success and failure.
What I Liked:
I had to think about this for a while, because as a guy that writes YA and fantasy, there isn't much on the surface of this movie for me to take away without crossing over and talking about the influence and significance of BOOGIE NIGHTS on my writing. But there is some stuff that I can take away from MM to use in my writing, including somethings that are already there.
In my series SEASONS OF DESTINY, I have a character that I desperately want to come across as crooked and sleazy (actually in my mind's eye he bears a striking resemblance to Channing Tatum). Watching and paying attention to the character Dallas was a good way to do so, because he oozes the exact sort of attitude and demeanor I want the character to. And like Mike, that character is on a road to redemption and salvation, if you will.
I also realized that you can't just shove a romantic element into a story if there isn't one there. I know that SEASONS lacks some romance in it, but I'm not going to pigeonhole it in there because it might make it more marketable for a romance to be in there. And that goes for a lot of other elements too, you can't just shove things in there because you want them there, they have to make sense within the context of your story.
There is something trashy about this movie that appeals to me. I could've put this as it's own thing under the "Things I Like" section, but I covered it with what I put there so I didn't. I genuinely believe there is a white trash/low life Nicholas Sparks-esque novel in me somewhere and I think that it would sound quite a bit like MAGIC MIKE looks.
Well, that's a first...I just analyzed how a movie about male stripper could influence my writing.
As I progress with these movie reviews, I'm going to include photos and maybe even gifs, but for now you'll just have to use my words. Cause that's what's really important.
I was seriously derided by member's of my wife's family for tweeting that I enjoyed this movie. It's no classic, that's for sure (and I'll get to that in a moment) but it was a pretty darn good movie. As I was watching it, I turned to my wife and said, "This reminds me a lot of 'Boogie Nights.'"
As I think on it, it was more like BOOGIE NIGHTS Light and I think that was part of the appeal to me. BOOGIE NIGHTS is one of my favorite movies of the last 20 years. I think it's a great example of a modern epic. No, really. We use the word epic all wrong these days but this isn't one of these times. BOOGIE NIGHTS was an epic movie along with being a modern classic. Make no mistake, MAGIC MIKE doesn't approach BN in scope or quality, but they are both similar movies exploring similar themes while playing with similar tropes, to varying degrees of success and failure.
What I Liked:
- Matthew McConaughey: In a forest of wooden performances, McConaughey stands head and shoulders above the rest. McConaughey is often cast as the kind of guy that men want to hang out with and women want to be with. He is always likable in his roles and is the guy you are rooting for the entire time. For the first time that I've seen him, McConaughey is playing unlikable and doing it well. He's still got that likable thing going on, but he's so sleazy and sneaky in this movie. He's on the cusp of being a washed up exotic dancer but clutching to it like a piece of flotsam. He owns the role, more concerned with the money he's earning than what happens to his men while seeming to care about the men. For a guy that makes his bread and butter by playing likable guys, his two most memorable roles are creeps, this one and as Wooderson. If Burt Reynolds got an Academy Award nod for playing Jack Horner, I have no idea why McConaughey didn't for Dallas. Seriously.
- Seedy Underbelly: We all love movies about the things we don't want to talk about. That's why gangster movies are so popular. And we continue to go deeper, look at TV shows like BREAKING BAD and SONS OF ANARCHY or the rise of "grimdark" in fantasy literature. We like the dark, seedy underbelly of society. The dark places we don't want to go and taking your clothes off for money is part of the dark underbelly, only to be found under layers of glitter, baby oil, spray tan and who knows what else. Like all with life, things intersect especially in the dark recesses of the sex business. And they are places many of us, in the darkest places in our minds that we don't want to admit exist, are drawn to and fascinated by them. This movie takes us to one of those places.
- Band of Brothers, So To Speak: If you read my previous post about being able to tell I wrote something, you know that one of the themes that I often explore in my own writing is the bond between men. MM deals heavily with this issue and really latches on to it in a bunch of different ways. Mike is responsible for The Kid throughout the whole movie. He is the reason The Kid gets into the business and there is a strong bond between the two characters because of this. They become brothers and constant companions...until they don't. The dancers as well are a band of brothers, united under Dallas as a member of his company, bonding together and responsible for one another. When something happens to one, there is no hesitation by the others to help out. The entire final third of the movie is about the dissolution of this bond and the damage it can cause to these men.
- Futility of Dreams: If there is a great American theme in literature and cinema, it is the realization that our dreams don't always come true and in all likelihood our dreams will never come true, no matter how hard we work. It's a hard truth sometimes, but it's also reality. The characters in this movie are all lower middle class, blue collar types that probably didn't have much of a chance at anything anyway. We don't get much background about the characters, but there's certainly an implication about their histories and where their dreams went off the tracks. It's a fascinating study to say the least.
- Men As Sex Objects: While this isn't my cup of tea, it's nice to see a movie where we aren't just ogling naked women. Also, the plot line between Mike and his gal pal Joanna was well done. The hurt that Mike feels when he realizes what he is to her is brilliant and one we've seen a thousand times from the other end.
- Can't See The Forest For The Trees: Wooden acting damn near killed this movie for me. Besides McConaughy and Tatum (at times), this cast was a bunch of Pinocchos. The older sister (I'm getting to that in a second) is as wooden as they come.
- Cliche Storm: Steven Soderberg, the director, usually does a nice job playing with the tropes of storytelling and puts his own spin on them. I mean look at the OCEAN'S movies. The characters are all cliches, but he does them well, but he flounders a bit here. There is so much he wanted to do with this movie he lost a lot of the characterization of the guys in the troupe and they descend into cliche-dom before long. His use of drugs and the drug culture was overused and trite as well, there were other ways to go. I think there would have been a better movie if instead of solely Ecstasy or pills (and I get that's a part of the times thing) he used something like steroids (it would make sense considering the entire "aging stripper" plotlines) instead. Also, too many of the scene seemed like retreads of things we've seen before, borrowing heavily from BN.
- Mama Bear: I always like the overprotective sibling character, but in the older sister is really flat and boring. There's nothing appealing about her character at all. She adds nothing to the movie but a nag on the boys good time. The fact that I feel that way about her shows how poorly done a character she is.
- RomCom: The entire Mike/Brooke romantic subplot feels forced and while the ending is relatively satisfying (right up until she says that her favorite breakfast place doesn't open for 7 hours...what are we going to do until then), it still didn't fit the tone of the rest of the movie.
I had to think about this for a while, because as a guy that writes YA and fantasy, there isn't much on the surface of this movie for me to take away without crossing over and talking about the influence and significance of BOOGIE NIGHTS on my writing. But there is some stuff that I can take away from MM to use in my writing, including somethings that are already there.
In my series SEASONS OF DESTINY, I have a character that I desperately want to come across as crooked and sleazy (actually in my mind's eye he bears a striking resemblance to Channing Tatum). Watching and paying attention to the character Dallas was a good way to do so, because he oozes the exact sort of attitude and demeanor I want the character to. And like Mike, that character is on a road to redemption and salvation, if you will.
I also realized that you can't just shove a romantic element into a story if there isn't one there. I know that SEASONS lacks some romance in it, but I'm not going to pigeonhole it in there because it might make it more marketable for a romance to be in there. And that goes for a lot of other elements too, you can't just shove things in there because you want them there, they have to make sense within the context of your story.
There is something trashy about this movie that appeals to me. I could've put this as it's own thing under the "Things I Like" section, but I covered it with what I put there so I didn't. I genuinely believe there is a white trash/low life Nicholas Sparks-esque novel in me somewhere and I think that it would sound quite a bit like MAGIC MIKE looks.
Well, that's a first...I just analyzed how a movie about male stripper could influence my writing.
As I progress with these movie reviews, I'm going to include photos and maybe even gifs, but for now you'll just have to use my words. Cause that's what's really important.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
How To Tell It's A Zeleznik
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk while my roommate was teaching her class and a discussion about theme came up with her class. She brought me into the discussion and asked me if, when I write, do I put themes in my work on purpose or do they develop independently? It's an outstanding question that I paused and thought about it for a moment. The words of another colleague came to mind, "No writer worth their salt puts something in their work on accident." (I'm paraphrasing a bit as I don't remember the exact quote from him.) And that is true...sort of. I responded to my roommate that they do get put in there on purpose though you don't often realize that you are putting them in there until after you've finished a draft or two, which is how I usually can pick up on my themes, which, in the course of this brief discussion, I realized I explored many of the same themes in all of my works (I know, all unpublished but someday dammit!) and I realized what I was talking about is motifs.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word motif means "a usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts)." It's one of my favorite literary words because it the motifs a writer uses in their work reveals as much about the writer as they do what they write. This is great self analysis I suppose though I'm probably too close to the subjects to comment on them, but looking across all the crap (and until some editor deems that I am the genius that I think I am, I'm calling my stuff crap) that I've written, I've picked up on some motifs and elements that would identify me as the writer:
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word motif means "a usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts)." It's one of my favorite literary words because it the motifs a writer uses in their work reveals as much about the writer as they do what they write. This is great self analysis I suppose though I'm probably too close to the subjects to comment on them, but looking across all the crap (and until some editor deems that I am the genius that I think I am, I'm calling my stuff crap) that I've written, I've picked up on some motifs and elements that would identify me as the writer:
- Bonds of friendship between men: Okay this one is in just about everything I write no matter what the genre and I KNOW it's one that I play with and explore. Henry V is my favorite Shakespeare play and it's one of the major themes of that play and it's crossed over into all of my work, from my trunk novel The Falling Dark to my Seasons of Destiny books to the novella I'm working on now, the friendships between guys is an important theme.
- Children paying for the sins of their parents: Mostly sons paying for their father's transgressions but there's other examples in their too. It really is one of the major themes of Seasons of Destiny and I definitely put it in Sisters of Khoda as well. I know that I want to tell a Jaiman story revolving around some mistake his father made as well somewhere down the line.
- Trees: It might have been the fact that a tree took my first two teeth when I was younger, it might be that I'm fascinated with the power and mystique of them, but in all of my work trees take a central role. From the "witchwoods" in Seasons to the grotto in Sisters, there's a lot of thematic importance to trees.
- Betrayal: As a writer of fantasy, betrayal is my bread and butter to be quite honest, but it's an important part of all my stories, even my self indulgent attempts at contemporary fiction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
