Angles -- No Whine, Just Champagne Discussion #113

I like the angle when I look back in a mirror and see attemps at creating life :-)

This house -- or rather these houses -- have become a landmark for me. I always look for them and their many angles.

Photography is a good way to learn about writing -- or so I tell myself. It's easier right now to take photos than to write -- it doesn't take a lot of focus. In fact, the camera does the focusing. I have learned that a good photo is about angle and light. I know writing is about angles, so light probably is too. I'm not sure how to use light in writing, but I'm sure it would make a difference in a story. Probably the contrast between light at dark? I'm sure there are other ways.

I'm sure I could use "I'm sure" several more times to make this sound even more insipid. Just goes to show that gather does need a comment edit button.

I think that competing light against dark can be taken a number of ways in writing. One character lives in the light, signifying brightness, pureness, an eyes wide open happy approach to life. Another character lives in the dark, preferring to keep the lights off or low, living in a world of darkness, dim and dreary, unhappiness, possibly impure or evil.

I have been writing some. Doing my morning pages, as suggested in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I write a letter to my lost mate every day -- it's a way to stay connected to him as I work my way through my grief. And periodically, I do write a bit on my grief story. Just patches. Someday, perhaps I can stitch all those patches into a story, but for now I'm glad to be doing any writing. I also post an occasional blog,gery though the focus of my blog has changed. Now it's more of a chronical of my personal journey than articles about writing.

As for the Artist's Way. It's a two-fold program -- the morning pages and the artist's date. Once a week you're supposed to go out and do something you want to do, but I've been doing it every day. Sort of. One thing that keeps me sane, even gives me something to look forward to, are my walks around this desert community (and into the desert -- can you believe it? I'm about fifteen minutes away from real, honest to god desert, complete with mojave rattlesnakes and scorptions, though luckily I have yet to meet those beasties). I stop often to take photos of anything that intrigues me, and I'm hoping this new focus is helping replenish my creative springs.

Is there an artists way for parents? I honestly can't remember the last time I did something I really want to do. I don't really remember anymore what I would want to do (other than writing).

Just make sure you take a few minutes for yourself every day to write. Julia Cameron said that's the way she wrote when her children were small.

I don't know what I want to do either, and I don't have the excuse of children. That's part of what I want to explore this summer while I'm exploring my environs -- see if I can figure out what I want, separate from what we wanted.

You have a much bigger reason. You just lost half of who you have been for the past few decades. It will be a big adjustment.

I heard an interesting quote today:

"For whom should I write?"

"Write for the dead whom thou didst love."

Seems apropos.

Well, I knew it had to happen, a discussion with me alone. Ah, well. That's what I get for taking a couple of weeks off.

I know the feeling all too well. I talk to myself every day. Usually when I say things like, "Please clean your room", "Put your clothes in your hamper please", or "Jammy time".

Hi Pat. I thought I'd drop by for a few minutes even though I'm really supposed to be working. I'm glad to see you back around.

I agree that photography is a great way to learn about writing. When I'm feeling creatively stagnant, I often pull out my camera and put it to good use. And behind the lens, I find that I'm looking at the world in completely different ways, noticing the details again. I like to take close-up photographs and I find that that really brings me down to noticing the details, which I can often use in my writing.

Ooh, what a great idea!

I think it's wonderful that you write that letter to your lost mate every day. Writing is, after all, therapeutic and what better way to express your grief than to the person you've lost. I think a writers, it's also--in some way--how we claim our own emotions which is so essential because as painful as they are sometimes, they're also a part of who we are and who we'll be.

I'm grieving right now, too, not with a death but for a lost marriage and a lost life and I find that when I allow those emotions into my writing, my writing is so much stronger. But sometimes it isn't easy because if it's something I plan on one day submitting, it feels a little bit like laying myself bare to the world (even if, realistically, I know that nobody would really understand that I'm writing about myself).

I know what you mean -- if I thought about what I was doing, putting so much of my own feelings into my writing, then I might not do it. But perhaps that courage is what makes a great writer?

I've also discovered -- from talking to so many grieving people -- that losing a mate to divorce is every bit as traumatic as losing a mate to death. It involves so much emotion, so much rethinking the past and one's identity. I'll be sending good thoughts your way.

I like that thought, Pat, that that courage is what makes a great writer. I know about eight or nine years ago, my critique partner at the time, after reading a number of my short stories told me that while she loved my writing style and was engaged by my plots, there was something clinical about my writing, detached. And as soon as she told me that, I knew exactly what she was talking about. Because I tend to be such a private person in real life, I often had a hard time letting go and putting myself, my emotions, my experiences, into what I was writing.

After she said that, and I heard the truth in it, I took a story and promised myself that I would never try and sell it, and then I just sat there and wrote. And it was a messy story, the writing sloppier than I like, but I filled it with emotion and experience and with myself. And my critique partner absolutely loved it.

It's gotten easier for me, but so many times I still catch myself holding back and have to remind myself to lay it all out there.

And last year, after losing one of my best friends to a sudden and unexpected illness, I wrote a little story about loss and friendship. I submitted it to last year's Family Circle fiction contest and ended up winning the grand prize, which was bizarre considering I'm a speculative fiction writer by nature and this was a mainstream story. But it was an important lesson for me. And gosh, I'm rambling tonight.

And thank you for the good thoughts. And they're coming right back at you, too. Here's wishing both of us an easing of sorrows in the future.

But your rambling is honest and inspiring. :-)

Thanks Jill. :-)

I decide who tells the story based on plot. Or maybe I should say I decide which characters DON'T tell the story because I don't want the character who IS telling the sorry to know something about the characters who don't tell the story. I want the non-tellers' stories/secrets to be discovered by the teller.

If that makes sense. lol

Of course it makes sense. Makes a lot more sense than authors who have the main character hiding secrets from the reader. Isn't that what Agatha Christie did in The Murder of Roger Akroyd? Some people love the story, but I think it's cheating. The reader should know what the POV character does.

Exactly, Pat. POV allows you to hide things, as well as reveal things in your story. There was a book I read awhile ago (book and author escape me, but someone fairly notable) and just about every character had POV. And there was no reason for it that I could discern. Bugged.

But I admit I did like Roger Atwood because it was soooo unexpected.

That does make sense. And it's interesting, Jill. You've given me something to think about here. I'm struggling right now with the POV in my WIP. I had originally wanted it to be a multiple-viewpoint story, sort of an ensemble cast but the more I'm writing it the more I think I'm going to go back and rewrite it from the POV of a single character (and not my originally chosen MC either). I think it's going to be a challenge and may change the whole audience of the book, but suddenly it's the voice I'm hearing the story told in.

Lisa, That sure fits in with the angle of this article. By changing the view point, the angle from which the story is told, it might change not just the audience, but the focus of the story, and perhaps even the story itself.

I guess it does really fit in now that I think about it. I'm excited about the possibilities with the story, too. I'm participating in a novel-in-a-month challenge this month (to try to jog myself out a nice little creative funk) and I'm just kind of going with it for now, but I'm realizing that after the month is over, the entire novel will probably have to be not just seriously revised but most likely rewritten completely once I figure out how to handle the POV change.

At the risk of outing my stupidity (LOL) what is speculative fiction, Lisa? As you define it, I mean.

I define speculative fiction -- and this is just my own definition, mind you, lol -- as genres in which there's an element of "speculation" beyond what's in the here an now as we know it (ore maybe more accurately, genres where that "speculative" element is crucial to the story. So pretty much fantasy and science fiction and supernatural horror, but these days I'm finding that those speculative elements are becoming much more acceptable in mainstream fiction with authors such as Alice Hoffman bringing them into popularity.

Thank you, Lisa, Jill, and Lori for participating in the discussion. I always enjoy talking to you, and I learn something too. Can't beat that!

Thanks for hosting a great discussion, Pat. And thanks to everyone for an engaging conversation.

Sorry I missed it. Glad to be able to read the comments after the fact.

I missed it too. Came back to late to the wombat thread and didn't check my gather email. Loved the discussion.

I think angle and light.... both relate to POV. Who's telling the story is the angle and how much the author lets the reader see is the light.

But it's important to note how important emotion is to a story. Emotion is that oft referred to "bleeding red on the page" that authors do. Without that emotion it's sterile. Emotion is life.

Pat, I'm so glad to see you back here again. I've missed you. I love the idea that you're taking walks every day, seeing new things, old things in new light and deeper into yourself. You're a courageous woman.

I totally forgot about the chat, so sorry!
Today is hubby's birthday. I had to go shopping for his cake and other stuff.
Maybe next week. Sigh.

I do like this analogy. Sorry I missed the chat.