Hi, kids–
I’m trying to get a discussion going over at Women and Words regarding transgender and genderqueer characters in fiction.
Happy Monday!
Author: Andi Marquette
Andi Marquette once wanted to be a seafaring pirate. But she realized that could be a problem, growing up in the Rocky Mountain West and Southwest. So she became an editor, anthropologist, and historian instead. But that, too, didn't satisfy her weird cravings for stories and strange realms. Now, she's a writer ensconced in Colorado and when she wants to go pirate-ing, she just makes something up.
I’m processing, here…
Hi, kids!
Writers talk quite a bit about “process.” Basically, your process involves the methods you employ to churn out that book/story/script/whatever you’re working on. Every writer’s process is different, so don’t freak out if you find out some writer somewhere does something like makes painstakingly detailed outlines and character sketches and that’s not something you do so oh, my god, maybe you’re doing this writing all wrong and holy crap you’re going to start keeping SRSLY outta control detailed notes and organize them alphabetically/chronologically because YES that must be how it’s done. And so on and so forth.
Point being, that might not be what works for you, though I, too, have had those moments where I think that I must be doing this writing thing wrong, because I don’t do X, Y, or Z or I do something that some other writer doesn’t do. I learned, over time, this important statement:
Whatevs.
That is, you do what works for you. Process and work = two sides of the same coin.
With that in mind, I leave you with Joe Bunting, at The Write Practice, who has provided Jack Kerouac’s 31 Beliefs About Writing.
Happy travels!
I love action movies, tropes n’ all
Hey, kids–
I’ll just own it right now. I want to see the movie Lockout (which opened today). Here’s the trailer:
link
I saw it advertised on the ol’ boob tube and the generic male voiceover called it a cross between Bladerunner (one of my faves) and Die Hard. The basic premise of Lockout is that there’s a seriously hardcore prison orbiting Earth, where the scariest criminals are housed.
OH, yeah. Those are a couple of good ingredients for a major action, butt-kicking, big ol’ American blockbuster hootenanny.
Let’s see how many action movie tropes we can pick out in the trailer alone.
Join me for some trope-hunting…
Here’s what I came up with:
Continue reading
Driven to detraction
I was thinking today about how writing can be an exercise in beating your head against a wall sometimes. You think that you’ve come so far since your fledgling steps into the mysterious world of craft and wordage, and then you read something that completely blows your mind and you wonder why the heck you can’t write like that yet, though you’ve been doing all the things you need to do.
You attend workshops. Maybe you have a writers’ group. You’ve got a good editor who works with you and you send bits of your manuscripts to writers you suspect are better than you to provide feedback and guidance. You read writing guide books, you do exercises in infrastructure and narrative, you maybe see a sort of evolution in your own pages, you get all the feedback you can, you develop a self-editor, and you study structure.
And then you read something so mind-bogglingly lovely that it leaves you both wallowing in appreciation and feeling as if you just got kicked in the teeth.
A few months back I shared a bit of writing on a social media website that I thought was exquisitely rendered and I posted a comment about how I was going back to the drawing board, so that I could get better, and perhaps approach the level of writing that the piece I had shared demonstrated to me. Somebody else commented right after that in response to me (and I’m paraphrasing here) that no matter how hard I tried, I would never write the way the author of the piece I’d shared would, that I would basically never attain it.
That comment stuck first in my craw and then in the back of my mind. Writers are a sensitive lot, after all.
But I came to understand something in the wake of that comment. No, I will never write like the author of the piece I so admired, for the simple reason that I am someone else, with a different style and narrative voice. I can’t say whether I will attain the level of craftsmanship and wordsmithing that I thought this other author approached, because my view in this matter may be subjective, and some out there will most likely think this other author isn’t all that, anyway.
That’s the other thing I took away from that comment. Not everything I write will resonate with everyone (it obviously hasn’t with that commenter), but that’s okay. I’m not necessarily writing for everyone. I’m writing the stories in my head, as I see them, and I’m striving to tell them in the best possible way that I can, through the alchemy of craft and voice. I know craft can improve with practice and attention, and I know that in that journey, somewhere, is my writer’s voice. Where it takes me remains to be seen.
Happy Tuesday.
And for a supercalifragilistic blog on “voice” and finding it, click here.
Music Break, people! Get funky!
Hi, peeps (ha ha! Get it? Peeps! It’s Easter!)
Anyway, after a brunch today, I went to do errands and was in a Celia Cruz kinda mood. I think you all need some of the late, great Celia Cruz to get you moving, get you shaking off the winter, and get you ready for spring. So here she is, in a fab dance mix of “Guantanamera”, by D’Menace:
No, this is not a video. It’s the song on YouTube, though. So just turn up your speakers and SHAKE IT!
link
Whew. If that doesn’t get you up and about, well, I can’t help you. Perhaps you’re a zombie.
Happy five minute dance party!
Letters to friends
I was looking for something writer-ish, maybe a tip to share with all of you who are writing or want to write. But instead, I found these two amazing blog posts that I wanted to share instead.
The first is by Victoria Oldham, who blogs here. Vic generally gets me thinking when she posts, even if it’s something humorous. She has a lyrical writing style, whose cadences are reminiscent of poetry. This post is no exception. Here, she writes a letter to a young butch, and it’s about claiming space, living, nurturing your identity, and finding your armor.
The second is by Jack Andrew Urquhart, a gentleman whose writing I just discovered today. He blogs here. In this, his short story “Letter to a Friend,” the main character (told in first-person POV) remembers a man with whom he fell in love, something that caught him completely off guard, as you’ll see. Urquhart has a hypnotic, gripping narrative style rich in imagery, sparse and clean in language, but deep in impact.
Word therapy, for this Easter and Passover weekend.
Happy reading, happy writing.
Abe Lincoln and alt-history
Okay, so I went to see The Hunger Games this weekend. I’ve read the trilogy (which I really enjoyed), but the movie could only do so much in 2.5 hours. A lot of the characters got short-changed, I felt, and the movie didn’t capture what I’ve been calling the utter banality and brutality of the Capitol. But again, there’s only so much you can do with a 2.5-hour movie. The cast was great, and I enjoyed the pacing of it, so there you go.
ANYWAY, my point is, I was sitting in the theater getting ready for The Hunger Games and the previews came on, including. . .
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
For reals, yo. And it freaking looks like it’s going to kick some serious ass. Check out the trailer:
link
OMG you know you want more of this! Keep reading!
In Memoriam: Adrienne Rich
“It’s exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.” — Adrienne Rich
source: Jezebel (re-sized here)
When I heard that Adrienne Rich had died (March 27), I immediately re-read some of her poetry, which I hadn’t done in a while. And after I’d read it, I thought about words I would use to describe her and what she wrote. I came up with several: fierce, brave, uncompromising, intellect, passion, visionary, unrelenting, inspiring. There are many others, but because of her work as a poet, it’s not necessarily about how many words you place on a page. It’s the words you choose and how you place them.
Have an affair…with your muse
Hey, peeps–
I have a few things I do before I sit down and start writing. Not sure whether “ritual” is the right word, but it involves preparing my space, getting things in order, and creating a welcoming environment not only for me, but my muses. I was thinking about that and BAM came across this blog at The Write Practice about your relationship with your muse, and 7 reasons she might not be talking to you. Or, if your muse is male, why he isn’t talking to you. For ease, we’ll stick with a female muse.
Here are a few things that might make your muse cranky, according to the blog:
We refuse to work until she shows up.
We put demands on her, like a perfect first draft or we demand that she show up whenever we want her to, and we expect she’ll drop everything to accommodate us.
We dink around on other things on the computer or whatever during the time we’ve committed to her.
We don’t pay attention to her or note the ideas she gives us nor do we give her credit when we create something.
Basically, treat your muse the way you would treat someone special in your life. Why the heck would your muse want to hang out with you if you diss her and diss your writing by not making time or space for it?
The reality is, your muse is only as good as you make her feel. And if you don’t treat your writing like the gift it can be, you’re going to end up with a muse who doesn’t give a rat’s ass, either.
Think about that. If you create the time and space for your writing, and treat it as something more than just sitting around playing on the computer, you create the good ju-ju (for lack of something more scientific) for your creative process (note the number of times I used the word or root CREATE in that sentence).
So if you’re having a difficult time and the muse isn’t talking to you, maybe get her some metaphorical flowers and make a date night. And make that a habit. See if you don’t notice an improvement in your relationship.
Happy writing, happy reading!
The Hunger Games and other dystopian ruminations
Hey, kids–
Some of you may be sitting in line right now to get into the next showing of the movie The Hunger Games. Some of you may have read the trilogy already, by Suzanne Collins.
Some of you may have been under a rock for the past…well, a while. Collins’ book The Hunger Games was first released in 2008, and started making a lot of buzz in YA circles, though it’s found a much larger audience with whom its themes resonate.
Want to know more about why that might be and what that’s about? Read on!
Andi Marquette 