WRITING & NEW MEDIA: At Odds

Posted on February 7, 2007 by Susan

Sitting here on the couch in a lump under a blanket held down by a laptop is not where I wanna be right now, yet it would be if there was some creative activity clicking its way across the monitor screen. 

Been trying for a long time to shake off the blues that paralyze, inhibit, sometimes prohibit the start and at all times the end of a project. 

Caught between learning the new, refining the old.  Why bring in the clowns and balloons if the pavement’s still sticky with tar?

In other words, as much as I want to put the time into practicing audio and visual enhancements for story, for playing around in both environment and character, I’m still stretching my way across the panorama of text…simple text. 

Truth is, I’m more comfortable with the alphabet and the unending ways to move 26 letters around and yet there’s something beyond that–without even entering new vistas of sight and sound.

Standing on the brink of the contemporary story.  A new way with words.  Need to get that down right first before I move on. 

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Techniques

Posted on February 6, 2007 by susan

O’Brien, with this novel, has shown that he knows the conventional form and elements of story, and therefore has become quite expert at twisting and flaunting them.  His novel approach of the many-faceted seemingly unrelated plot paths is even more complicated with his method of tieing a semblance of story together. 

One of the interesting ploys is to use "notations" to make a flat statement that might otherwise be presented in imagery or standard infodump form:

A Tuesday evening at the Red Swan, example of:  In the darkness of the early night Trellis arose from his bead and drew a trousers over the bulging exuberance of his night-clothes, swaying on his white worthless legs.

Nature of trousers: Narrow-legged, out-moded, the pre-war class.  (p. 42)

Offered as an author’s manuscript note, by allowing it in, there is no necessity of writing it in another form, weaving it into the story by conventional methods.  It’s rather ingenius.

But then there’s also the question of knowing some of the information that an author doesn’t always include.  Too, the question of why the author (and which author?  O’Brien his character of the young novelist?) gives us what he does. 

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LITERATURE: The Pleasure of the Text – A Question of Degree?

Posted on February 6, 2007 by susan

Barthes claims that Pleasure is not the lesser, nor Bliss the greater form of the same thing. That instead, they run parallel, and may even be in conflict.  In an interesting argument he brings up the inability to speak of Bliss in words, while text that is labeled Pleasure, cannot be explained in words.  Sort of like the sexual "oh, Gaawwwd, yes, yes!" versus the final "aaaaargh…"

There is more that Barthes gives as illustration, something relative to history and possibility.  Trouble is, I don’t quite get everything that he presents here.  What I cannot grasp, I reread a few times.  Then I move on. 

This is where study in a class atmosphere is more conducive to learning; when the questions can be discussed, argued, answered in some sort of manner.  When you read alone, you either give up, or carry the rocks of information along instead of laying them along the path.  This book, in other words, will need to be read again, in a better time, a smarter time.  But I will get out of it for now what I can.

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EDUCATION: Online

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Susan

Via Chris Coonce-Ewing, I found that MIT offers free–yeah folks, free!–course studies in a wide field of disciplines.  While they’re non-credit and not current, they do make the materials available for study and give you an excellent learning base.  There’s no feedback, so there’s no deadline, but for the quality, I don’t think there’s any reason why the quality and learning shouldn’t be the reason to set the pace for myself.

I’m looking at the contemporary lit and the creative writing and the new media courses right now, but I may try something different.  I need the discipline of an outline, a deadline–even self-imposed.

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REALITY?: Use It or Lose It

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Susan

Money and campus rights were the topics of mind today.

So January and now February I spend running around spending health care money from the flex-spending account because even though it’s our money, if we don’t use it by March 15th–a deadline extended only to dental and vision care–we’ll forfeit the balance.

Only in this country, only in this time, only in this society of free-thinking intellectuals could we "save" by putting pre-tax dollars into a special fund set aside for health care, and then lose it if we don’t use it.  I’d like to know who gets to keep all the dollars that are forfeit?

So I went for new glasses this morning and spent–no, saved–money.  And my eye examination showed little change and no problems since my last exam about six years ago.  This time I wouldn’t let anyone talk me into the stylish skinny ovals that make anyone over forty look like a granny.  Or at least that’s what I’ve been blaming.  I even tried on men’s glasses to get a decent size lens but the men are allowed a choice of those skinny ovals that make them look like whatever, or the macho rectangle shape.  But I found what I wanted. The new ones are large, slightly hexagonal and I love them.

Then I hung a right and a left into the old alma mater to check out the lit journals again in the library.  The building expansions are a marvel to see.  The lack of parking is worse.  Up and down rows, behind and in back of–not a one free space to be found.  Even those spaces that no one else wants–half up on a snow bank–were taken by other, more desperate student-owned four-wheelers.  And since I’m no longer a student, or anybody at all on campus, there were no spaces left for me.

So I left.  Guess I’ll have to just use my own judgment on this last submission.  That, or wait until autumn again.

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LITERATURE & NEW MEDIA: At Swim-Two-Birds – Paths and Concepts

Posted on February 5, 2007 by susan

I don’t know that "concept" is precisely what I mean here, but with the multilayered structure of this novel (narrator present (?) plus three more separate story lines), it is a learning experience in itself, but the author teaches even more because of the nature of the form.  Listen to this:

The novel, in the hands of an unscrupulous writer, could be despotic.  In reply to an inquiry, it was explained that a satisfactory novel should be a self-evident sham to which the reader could regulate at will the degree of credulity.  It was undemocratic to compel characters to be uniformly good or bad or poor or rich.  Each should be allowed a private life, self-determination and a decent standard of living.  This would make for self-respect, contentment and better service.  It would be incorrect to say that it would lead to chaos.  Characters should be interchangeable as between one book and another.  The entire corpus of existing literature should be regarded as a limbo from which discerning authors could draw their characters as required, creating only when they failed to find a suitable existing puppet.  The modern novel should be largely a work of reference.  Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before–usually said much better.  A wealth of references to existing works would acquaint the reader instantaneously with the nature of each character, would obviate tiresome explanations and would effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimbleriggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature.  (p. 32)

Holy guacamole.  This is pretty heavy stuff.  On the one hand, it would appeal to Barthes in the taking of control from the author and putting it in the hands of the reader.  On the other, it appears to reference the fact of the limited story lines and the extent of variation of character traits.

Storytron may figure into this.  I have to think on this some more, but wanted to get it written down and highlighted because I have a feeling that we’ll be coming back to this again and again.  I’m inclined to believe that here, in this paragraph, is the clue to O’Brien’s whole concept of writing fiction.

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WRITING: Bummer

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Susan

Yeah, Crows is done and it’s techically well-written and even has a good story (which is not my strong point) and a series of actions and conflicts that build to a nice arc and resolution of story.  But it sucks.

It has no meaning, no relevance to a reader’s life–it doesn’t even have any real meaning for me.

I realize that while nice little stories are, well, nice, and that voice and style and language add up to fine writing, for the short story market these days–and in particular, university-based literary journals–you need more.  You need something like what I used to call a head-scratcher that leaves you puzzled if you didn’t get it; with a grand sense of smugness if you did.

So Crows may not fly this week after all.  Instead, this opening line came up:

When Lynda Pfieffer-Cordman told her husband Jeff that she’d signed up for the space shuttle he snorted and told her it was dumb.  That gave her the confirmation she needed to know she’d done the right thing.

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NEW MEDIA & WRITING: Tools

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Susan

Some neat stuff I found while floating around the cosmos this morning:

From Jerz’s Literacy Log, a cool video that illustrates the possibilities progress of hypertext and digital media methods.  It’s a neat explanation as well as an interesting use of itself.

For a long time I’ve been wanting Eastgate’s Storyspace as a plot device for hypertext, and while the cost is still a bit high for me right now, via Paperback Writer, there are a couple free to cheaper options that may serve as a starting point.  Text Block Writer is free, and the more expansive (and expensive–versus free) is Text Block Author which seems like a good choice at only $29.95.

 

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Hypertextual Structure

Posted on February 4, 2007 by susan

Okay, I admit that I had to check this out so I did just some quick research to figure out what was going on here.  While at another time in life I might have joyfully accepted without question, or perhaps understood it without question, the way my brain’s been working lately I became lost after the first few pages.

This is hypertext before hypertext was invented, I think.  There’s a narrator, a college kid who appears to be writing stories (looks like three of them) and he’s got the absolute right idea:  Why just one beginning?  Why just one end?

Perfect timing for my reading of this–if I can follow it–as I come closer to developing something in hypertext myself.

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REALITY?: Uh-boy.

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Susan

Hanging on by my toenails to some semblance of sanity here.  Another pipe leak in the cellar, and we’ve had the water shut off since last night–luckily not the heat as well.  We’ve made a conscious decision to hold off on getting the plumber in until tomorrow since we’re tired of paying weekend emergency rates.  (NOTE:  I’d gladly live with Jackson’s Hill House’s slamming doors and noisy nights over this house’s pipe-bursting activities on weekends.)  We also need to take out a section of a finished ceiling that the idiot who owned the house before us insisted on putting up–this in a homestead that has a plumber on speed-dial. 

It’s been one month since I retained the services of a new lawyer who promised to end my nightmare by the end of January.  He’s done nothing except send a letter letting everybody know that he’s my lawyer now, and spoken ten minutes with my previous lawyer to get some papers that I offered him in my first consultation.  Oh yes, and he’s cashed the $1,500 retainer I gave him immediately. 

In the meantime, my greedy sister is still freely spending our small inheritance on renovations for my dad’s house because she intends to buy it some day (it’s only been nearly three years).

Glad she’ll be getting updated plumbing. 

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WRITING: Drafts 1 – 6

Posted on February 3, 2007 by Susan

I’m done, I think, with When The Crows Gather, Draft #6.  I’ve spent hours on it these past few days.  It’s ready, I believe, to try to make a go of it in the publishing world.  The doubts are still there, yes; it would be nice to have had someone read it.

I dug up and read Draft #1, dated 2/23/2005.  Wow.  I honestly thought that was any good?  How different, and yet there are many of the same lines–those favorites that I haven’t been able to cut loose.  What is the difference, what made the changes in that year?  Drafts #2, 3, 4 and 5–when did I work on those?  I won’t look.  Most likely they were done within a month following the original.  I don’t think I’ve read the story since; just called up Draft #5, renamed a copy of it #6, and moved from there. 

The characters, I think, have developed.  The story has become more vital, more filled with conflicts piling up.  The beginning?  It still makes no sense to me but it remains.  Because I like it.

But then, I remember:  I liked Draft #1 once upon a time.

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WRITING: Not Dead Yet

Posted on February 3, 2007 by Susan

Why oh why?  It seems as if the moment I make my mind up not to indulge myself any longer in literary delusions the very next thing I do is write.  Or rewrite. 

There was a cutoff plan:  Midway through the return of the rejections.  Yet it takes only one, even though they always say consider us again, only that one amid the writer’s version of a slush pile, the one that says This is not our standard rejection form, is enough to reignite the fire.

Sometimes it’s something new that hits like lightening.  Sometimes it’s that one that’s been abandoned but still wraps its cord into the womb of mind where it was born. 

Why can’t I be content just writing here for me and you?  It’s not enough–and I’m sorry for that.  To see my name in lights, then?  Not really, but surely on the Table of Contents page.

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WRITING: Slipping Into Character — or not

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Susan

It seems that once upon a time I thought this was so important: to try on your main character, to act and think as he would.  There’s no doubt that it does help in getting into the story rather than holding it at arms’ length (as far as the keyboard anyway).  The only problem here might be that you have the character acting as you would.  How exciting is that?  This is fiction after all; if your own life were exciting you wouldn’t be making things up.  So why limit the protagonist to your own fears and lack of experience?

Sit back and just watch what he does.  Is he the type to pick the penny up off the floor or one who wouldn’t bother?  Or one who didn’t even notice it?

While we can imagine all kinds of things, and make them fairly plausible, here is also where experience comes in.  That is, if you’re a watcher not just a doer.  Years of listening to other people, watching them, noting their reactions, and here we’re lucky–watching movies and television dramas and yes, sitcoms, that enhance characterization often even better because it’s studied and concise, can’t help but add to the storehouse of what you could but never would do yourself.

Maybe fiction writing, just as in the reading, is living vicariously through someone else. 

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LITERATURE: Up Next –

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Susan

There are two that caught my fancy, and I’m likely to read a page or two of each before I decide, by mood alone, which will be the next read.

Sinclair Lewis’ Babbit is tempting, and I’d pulled it from the shelf before Jackson’s Hill House, but Hill House won out.  Possibly because I was in the mood for a quicker read (interrupted of course by fax machine setup problems) and for a mystery.  Babbit seems to be a deeper read, and this is what I’m in the mood for (while I still have a brain that’s operating at the higher scale of its limitations).

The other is Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds.  You’ve gotta admit, that title just begs to be explored. 

Reading the opening lines, O’Brien’s simply cannot be halted and put back on the shelf:

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes’ chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired in the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.  I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities.  One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with.  A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.

I’m smiling, I’m wowwing, I’m hooked.   

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LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Finale

Posted on February 2, 2007 by susan

Finished this last night, and despite picturing Julie Harris as Eleanor throughout the reading, I still can see how Jackson has written the character skillfully as a troubled young woman who in fact was exactly what Harris portrayed.

I had seen the original movie several times, and I remember thinking at the time that Harris played Eleanor with a bit of overacting–that breathless, pathetic, "please like me" manner that she does so well.  But it seems that Jackson wrote the character so perfectly well that I saw the way she was, noticed when she started changing, and my feelings towards her changed as the story unrolled.

While Jackson is also a master crafter of the subtleties of the ghost story–or rather, the horror tale, I would say, as much of what goes on may indeed be in Eleanor’s mind and may have infected the others to that point of imagination as well–the plot is fairly light, the drama is not overly intense with conflict, and I’d say the true prize in this novel is the unveiling of the layers of Eleanor’s subconscious mind.

Well written, of course, and both entertaining and challenging in its way, The Haunting of Hill House is one of the better books I’ve read in this genre that has managed to maintain its literary status as well.

Oh yes, and I don’t know whether the movie changed the ending, or perhaps I just blanked out that part in my mind, but the final scene is just priceless not only for its twist, but for its (excuse the pun) impact.

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