NEW MEDIA & WRITING: Faithful vs. Flawed

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Susan

It’s a lot easier to spot the flubs in a movie than it is to find them in a book.  Often when you question something in a text you’ve gone so far beyond it that you couldn’t necessarily find it without a lot of trouble in backtracking.  One page in a book, after all, looks pretty much like every other.

We’re watching High Plains Drifter (again!) with Clint Eastwood. We’re also watching the NASCAR Daytona 500 race, switching back and forth at hubby’s whim.  I love these old westerns, and especially the Eastwood ones (as Elaine of Seinfield would say, Eastwood’s definitely spongeworthy) but one thing has always bothered me about this movie.  There’s an obvious flaw in planning.

Eastwood comes into a town terrorized by some bad guys and is talked into helping them.  He actually makes fools of them and pushes them to their limits by his demands.  His reason is that he, as sheriff, was bullwhipped in the street by the bad guys a while ago, and these same people just stood and watched.  The problem?

I don’t care how many years went by between episodes, and you don’t have to be Clint Eastwood; why doesn’t anyone in town recognize their former sheriff?

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WRITING: Words–Inspired versus Planning

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Susan

This was brought up to me once, when in a classroom setting I couldn’t write in a short given time a word of story.  It sort of means that a good, professional writer should be able to conjure up a story on the spot.  Not me; I need to wait for inspiration.  Something either comes out of the blue, or maybe something seen or heard will inspire, but I’m just not able to force something based on direction.

Course, I never did take direction well.  How many of you tried making jello with fresh pineapple despite this one single warning on the box?

So now I’m stuck with Few.  The story needs a point, and that I have come up with (in a brilliant stroke of inspiration) but now that that’s decided, I can’t write the dialogue for it. 

But I do tend to respond to deadlines, and there’s one looming so maybe with that on my head, stress shall inspire. 

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REALITY?: Sunday Sights and Sounds

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Susan

Random happenings and thoughts today…

An ice block hits (is thrown at?) the roof of my car as I drive back home along the river.  A loud crash startles me, has me wondering what I hit and then I spot the ice scattering across the road behind me.  I think, in one more month exactly, Greenie will be 10 years old.  The only dents in this car were made by hail as big as quarters a few years back.  I get home and step up on the back door entry.  Nothing. Not a dent or chip anywhere.  How wonderful is that?

Four young people, likely college age, ahead of me in one of two registers open at Adam’s Supermarket.  Each one carries a single bottle of soda and a couple items more.  They could have gone through the express, and I’m hoping they don’t intend to buy these items individually.  They don’t, and I feel bad for prejudging them. But then I see that one of them didn’t intend to buy an item at all.  He slips what looks like a pack of cigarettes into his back pocket.  No one else, I don’t think, saw him.  I say nothing, of course.

My neighbor gives me a framed 5 x 7 photograph of Jim and me taken at her recent birthday party.  I look my usual horrendous, now worse with a chipped bottom tooth.  She says her granddaughter insisted that I had bunny ears but she told her it was just the eyeglasses I’d slipped up on top of my head.  Her granddaughter was right however–though I call them devil horns; Jim’s two fingers above the top of my head.  I may be the only one with several wedding photos of a deviled bride.

That’s it for reality today.

I hope.

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – I’m in there, sort of…

Posted on February 17, 2007 by susan

Unfortunately, not as a published author, but as a character:

Lucille used to look on the pines, watch them turn black against the horizon as the earth turned away from the sun, one cigarette after another, coffee making her hands shake or gin inviting her to hum Willie Nelson tunes before the spectacle.  (p. 158)

If you’ve been with me here at Spinning for the last three years, you’ll surely recognize the similarities.

Only my name’s not Lucille.

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – The Deep, Meaningful Ones

Posted on February 17, 2007 by susan

The next two stories do have that in common; they are more literary in that one can relate to the more character, human event nature of the storylines.

Although it’s one more "divorced father coping with raising a kid minus a mother" stories, Ray, Like Sunshine by Paul Rawlins does carry the reader through on a likeable dad who’s not as sorry a picture as most in these stories.  The protagonist naturally is still hung up a bit on his ex-wife, takes his son to a ballgame where he meets the mother of another player, and fantasizes a bit about them being together.  Same old, same old.  But there’s no bitter confrontation here that forces a decision.  It’s more reality: realization comes simply that life goes on.  He’s acknowledging that he still wants his ex-wife, and it’s going to take time to get over it.  Nicely written.

In Bluefish, South of Plymouth, R. Clifton Spargo acknowledges the similarity by opening paragraph 2 with: Pete and I were on a suburbanized version of a Kerouac road trip,…  And frankly, I would have liked to have seem some of Spargo’s insight into character and giving them life in Kerouac’s novel.  It’s a very simple story where two young men take a short trip back to the first person narrator’s home town and stay with an elderly man who’s been a friend of the family.  There is a special excitement yet pathos around this character, and there is a gentle understanding that develops around past, present and future and the viewpoints of the young versus the old.  The only thing that was a bit too pat was the mention of the man’s dead wife’s ashes likely being in a coffee can, and the closing scene of him scattering those ashes on the sea as the two young men depart.  A bit forced, it seemed.  And too, the sudden appearance of the running of the blues (bluefish) in a frenzied cannibalistic act as they come just at that moment.  Then too, it could be just imagination and not a reality, put together by the narrator as a more fitting ending to the tale.  Even so, nothing to that point of story led me in that direction (unless I missed the whole point of "being a believer" of the old man’s stories) and my natural sense of "oh, come on" tainted my full enjoyment of this well written short story.

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NEW MEDIA & WRITING: Exactly that in Gameplay

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Susan

Just as in the beginning and as evermore shall be, those who foresee problems will see them a damned long time before anything is done about it.  I’ve been slowly getting my feet wet with new media software, both in studying what’s been done and trying to learn it myself.  But all along I’ve taken it as a multilayered phenomenon, and it most certainly is that; one of audio, visual, and interactive wordplay through story. 

Progression: Following Myself has just posted on the certain lack of writing quality seen so often in these games:

Hotel Dusk is a brand new game by Nintendo which they are describing furiously in their marketing as an “interactive mystery novel”. There’s a whole fuss being made about the fact that you “hold the DS like a book!” whilst playing, and blah blah blah. Here’s my problem with this – and this translates to the games industry, generally, as a whole – it’s not brilliantly written, and the story is less than engrossing. Very few companies – Bioware being the only notable example I can think of – employ writers to work on their stuff, and if they do it’s a huge Gaming press big deal. Why the hell is this not the standard?

Even television understood the need for quality writing; consumers can only be awed for so long by the medium in itself, and constant action is not everyone’s cup of tea. Why then, when this subject has been rolled around for a number of years already, is there still no real push to improve and focus on one problem that has been pointed out by consumers?

There are a number of companies working on authoring improvements for games and such, but the overall method appears to be focused on making the process easier, not necessarily better. Storytron, for example, seems to allow a huge variety of character interaction, but its goal is more to allow better reader/user interaction than to supply a vivid and skilled guide by the writer.

Barthes predicted it and hailed it as progress:  Death to the author!

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WRITING & BLOGGING: The Hooker

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Susan

Lord knows we understand how vital a hook is in a query letter, and mainly, the hook is not for the consumer, but for the agent, editor, the publisher.

Technology is changing even this aspect of writing; the hook is now vital to not only those first few pages of a novel, but of short stories submitted to literary publications.  With the increased amount of writers submitting (due again, to the convenience of a pc and online submissions) and the fact that short story cover letters do not require more than a sentence or so of story description, the hook is what’s going to get the whole story read.  Oh yeah, I know; everybody claims they read the whole story.  But let’s face it, an experienced editor or reader can tell by the first page if they feel it’s something they’ll want to publish, and since they don’t have to reply with any more than a yes, please or a no, thank you, they’re not going to–and shouldn’t–force themselves to read through to the end.  So, until the second line–the one after the title that says "By" is a recognizable place to continue reading, the first paragraph, maybe even the opening line needs to be a hooker.

Something else new, in the blogging world: each posting needs a hook.  Here it has to be either by the title, or by the first three lines max.  With rss feeds, that’s often all that users read as we scan the list of all places to check.  Only if the setting is on "full entry" will we read the whole thing there.  But if there’s just a taste of the topic, and only if it peaks our interest (hooks us) we may visit the actual website or blog.

Why do you think I placed "The Hooker" in my post title?

 

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TECHNOLOGY, WRITING & REALITY?: Gone

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Susan

I’m sitting here contemplating the word "gone."

Gone:  absent, irrecoverable, used up, pregnant, dead, uneasy, infatuated, exhilarated.

Concentrating on absent, irrecoverable, and dead, absent doesn’t quite fit entirely; absent can reverse into present, so that irrecoverable isn’t then a suitable synonym, nor is dead when its most common antonym is living or alive.

Nor is gone relatable via an understanding of out of contact, or out of reach.  Technology has made gone meaningless.  Is someone who is out of reach–let’s, say really, out of our communication circle–truly out of reach?  One of the most obvious examples of the multilayered meaning of gone might be Lee Harvey Oswald.  He was personally gone for me before he shot Kennedy, then became available in real time television as he was led between jails.  Then Jack Ruby showed up and in that moment, Oswald was shot and killed (and, gone) before our very eyes.

Let’s take a current happening, that of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.  Certainly she is considered to be gone, and yet what difference to millions of people who have watched a clip of her, let’s say, walking into the courthouse, looking trim and beautiful and sad, when the clip was shown prior to her death or after?  Is she any more gone?  And what of space?  She certainly filled a certain space while alive, but there she is, taking up the exact same space on my tv in my living room, regardless of the fact that she’s considered gone.

We all wonder about death and most believe that the spirit of a life is eternal.  Goes to heaven, even.  Well that’s about as gone as gone can get if we’re taking it as an end to communication.  But what of the people we’ve left behind in our past who were very real and alive, yet we’ve had no communication with for decades?  They’re gone to us; Helen Drazwieczski from kindergarten is gone to me.  Would it matter in my understanding of gone if she is alive or dead now? This isn’t meant to be crude or insensitive, it’s just a trail of thought pattern in trying to logically approach a meaning. 

Is this something we all ponder… or something we mostly try to avoid?

So why do I categorize this entry under WRITING as well?  Because in thinking through a story idea that would question the ability to discern fact from fiction in the written word, I must go at it as would a child, with that curiousity that wants to believe and yet doubts what it’s being told.

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TECHNOLOGY & REALITY?: Cold

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Susan

Chopped my way into my barn/shop late yesterday afternoon.  So I could sit in here and freeze today.

But one thing it gives me opportunity to try (the silver lining?):  Freezing a hard drive to recover lost information.  I have two of them I’ve taken out, and just by chance have left them here in the shop to hook up to that computer because it still has WIN 98 on it.  Will it work? 

I know my own internal hard drive isn’t spurred on by freezing temps. 

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LITERATURE & NEW MEDIA: At Swim-Two-Birds – Grounding Ideas

Posted on February 16, 2007 by susan

O’Brien separates the stories in this novel by prefacing them with the narrator/author’s notes:

Further extract from my Manuscript on the subject of Mr. Trellis’s Manuscript on the subject of John Furrisky, his first steps in life and his first meeting with those who were destined to become his first friends; the direct style:  He remarked…etc.  (p. 67)

These prefaces are in italics, and separated by white space.

Thank God.

But the idea that O’Brien presents us with, that of a writer writing about a writer (not counting O’Brien himself), would of course be complicated without the "mapping" that he provides. 

I wonder how hypertext would work in this particular novel, but the idea is interesting. 

O’Brien also takes on the problem of a full grown protagonist:

He remarked to himself that is was a nice pass when a men did not know the shape of his own face.  His voice startled him.  He had the accent and intronation usually associated with the Dublin lower or working classes.  (p. 67)

It amazes me how much planning and attention to the progression of story line this novel must have taken.  And yet, this also had to be a work inspired.  That, I suppose, is one of the elements necessary in such a complex novel:  an author who enjoys and knows how to plot, how to storyboard.

Which brings me to another question: How much would new technology such as a software program like Storyspace have helped O’Brien plan this out?

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REALITY?: Ruled by the Weather

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Susan

I am, very much so.  Mood swings not with the moon, but with the sun and clouds and wind and rain.  Sunshine heats the heart up. Grey days, I’m nearly gone.

But for real this time–Can’t unfreeze my shop door from the Wednesday snow and ice. 

And so, I’m closed and reading, writing, thinking instead.

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NEW MEDIA: Everything I’ve Learned About Life I’ve Learned in My Garage

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Susan

The concept of shadow, of course, is easily understood.  But then again, how often do we see (or notice) a double shadow in natural light?  Natural, that is, meaning not a staged effect.

021607nmA bit hard to see, but two shadows from the electrical cord against the wall (marked by arrows).

The dual light source is from a window directly to the right, and another window in the opposite wall.

Simple stuff.  I just love spotting something I understand from book larnin’ to be true, but that reveals itself in a natural occurrence as proof.

An interesting note:  When I went to take a picture, I realized that the flash would either throw a third light source into the scene, or obliterate the shadows of the other two.  Covering the flash and zooming in did the least damage.

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LITERATURE: The Pleasure of The Text – Some Thoughts

Posted on February 15, 2007 by susan

Obviously I read this a few paragraphs at a time, with days in between readings.  Also obvious, I’m sure, is that I don’t fully understand all the meanings as Barthes is presenting them.  But there are some things that just stand right out and grab me:

To be with the one I love and to think of something else; this is how I have my best ideas, how I best invent what is necessary to my work.  Likewise for the text: it produces, in me, the best pleasure if it manages to make itself heard indirectly; if reading it, I am led to look up often, to listen to something else.  (p. 24)

This I’ve done. This I’ve felt.  Marquez in particular has me stopping in the middle of a page, sometimes to lay the book aside and roll a phrase or idea around in my mind as a sourball on my tongue.  There is a pleasure in this, as foreplay; drawn out with little spikes of delight as comprehension as well as inspiration and imagination build.  Even once it’s understood–or not understood, but presented itself in all its possibilities–the taste remains after the candy has melted away.

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – Story

Posted on February 14, 2007 by susan

Hmmph.  I just got done reading a 38-page story in this issue that made me reconsider some things I thought I knew and practiced in just the last couple of days.

Creed of Whispers by Joseph Flanagan is, oddly enough, set in New England of the 1880s.  It starts and ends at the funeral of a rather odd local character, with the main story centering around one of the mourners, a young single woman who we find had been raped, had an abortion, and along with her mother–whose husband has abandoned them–maintain some measure of social status as best they can amid the lack of income and wealth of disgrace.  It’s rather well written, and it does have a very interesting story line with such activity and drama, and there is a relationship between the young woman and the recently deceased that somehow offers hope. 

The 38-pager is a story by Andre Dubus III called Marla.  The protagonist is a 29 year old single woman who might best be described as ordinary to dumpy with a job as a bank teller and no circle of friends beyond her co-workers.  No boyfriend either, and still a virgin.  She starts dating a customer, moves in with him, and we follow the relationship through the natural progression from elation to revelation.  After living with him a while, she starts seeing all the things that she doesn’t like and realizes that she probably has given up her life to put up with something just because she doesn’t want to be lonely. 

Marla is well written in voice, and yet it seemed to be an awful lot of telling for a story where the main thrust is the emotions of a relationship.  We’re constantly told of how Marla feels.  We’re reminded continually of her low self-esteem.  The other characters are defined a bit by dialogue, but mostly by what the third person narrator tells us they’re like.  I was a bit surprised at the quality of the story–though it reads easily enough–upon seeing Dubus III’s credits.

But what do I know.

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REALITY?: Gorgonzola

Posted on February 14, 2007 by Susan

This is about as close to reality that I am willing to share on this icy, stay under the laprobe and read day:

Two slices of rye bread, buttered lightly on the outside, a thin layer of mayonnaise on the inside, sprinkled with crumbled Gorgonzola (or better even, blue) cheese, a tad of salt and more than that of pepper.  Place as a sandwich into a sandwich grill until heated to toasty.

Yum.

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