Sites I Like--Theoi Project

Theoi Project is a site I've used quite a bit for story research, inspiration, and simple enjoyment. The site provides a free reference guide to characters, creatures, and gods from Greek mythology.  Images from ancient art, encyclopedic summaries that include reference citations, and a library of ancient texts present a comprehensive picture of wide ranging mythological topics.  I love that so much is compiled in one place, and because I'm a visual learner, I find  the combination of images and descriptive text particularly useful.

This image of Tyrrhenian pirates from theoi.com is one of over 1,200 unique pictures in the gallery.

Point of View in "A Discovery of Witches"

Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches, wrote most of the aforementioned novel in first person, but also included sections written in third person, focusing primarily on secondary character, Matthew Clairmont.  In the Q&A section of her website, Harkness gives this response when asked why she combined the two methods:  "Early in the process of writing the book I realized that vampires must be secretive and protective creatures. For Matthew, this means he has both a strong instinct to hide from Diana’s questions and a need to protect her from threats. The only way to show that dynamic in Matthew (without making the reader very impatient with him) was to take Diana out of the picture temporarily and show him interacting with others who knew him in other ways. Since Diana is the first-person narrator, this caused some problems that omniscient narration solved. I think the combination of the two narratives works surprisingly well and gives the reader the immediacy of Diana’s experience along with some answers to their questions about Matthew."

As a reader, I found the combination jarring and unnecessary.  I like suspense.  I would have preferred to wonder more about Matthew's motivations and to worry whether Diana was unwise to trust him.  For me, sticking only with the first person point of  view would have added a tantalizing layer to the story.  Every time the point of view changed, I was pulled out of the plot, and portions of the story seemed repetitive after experiencing them from both points of view.   I wonder how the novel would have flowed if Harkness had used only omniscient point of view, balancing the story among the two characters and abandoning first person altogether.

Remembrance for a good cat

 

Lily died yesterday.  Her absence I notice more keenly than I did her constant subtle presence.  She was not a cat who curled on laps.  She hid whenever company came.  But her independence was not the aloof and haughty kind of which cats are commonly accused.  Instead, she behaved like the best of old friends--sharing moments of affection and finding happiness also in solitude. She parceled her companionship, sidling up to my chair as I worked and standing prairie-dog style to rub her head against my hand.  Satisfied, she always sauntered just out of reach to watch me for awhile.  Every night she appeared a half hour before bedtime to stare at Jim and I and jump up on the couch for the passing attention she relished best.  When we rose to settle in, she would beat us down the hall and bed down on my husband's side.  Each morning she had shifted to snuggle alongside my legs.  I'd blame her for my hitting snooze too many times and linger to pet her soft head before diving into a day.

This morning I didn't want to open my eyes.  This morning I had no reason to linger in bed half-awake, all alone.

After six gray days, the sun shined today--brightness bursting through my unwashed windows.  If Lily were here, she would be basking in the swatches of sunlight.  I would stop to pet her on my way to re-fill my coffee cup.  She would roll on her back, her front legs stretched up in surrender, and she'd purr while I rubbed her furry chest.  Eyes half-closed, whiskers twitching, she'd share with me that contentedness she captures better than anyone in this home. 

Thirteen years we've shared our daily routines.  In her small, quiet way she filled empty moments and sunlit patches of carpet.  I miss her.

A Little Romance

A visual writing prompt for Valentine's Day:

 Some questions you might want to explore in your exercise:

• Who are these people and what is their relationship?  
• What are they thinking/feeling at this moment?
• Where are they and why are they there?
• Why are the streets empty?
• Who is watching?  Why?

Scrivener for Windows

Scrivener, a software designed to help writers not only format but also generate content, was only available for Mac users when one of my writing buddies started using it last summer.  Reading her review and listening to her describe using the program, I had a twinge of software envy.  I have a PC.  I compose in Microsoft Word with my own formatting settings, and I use Microsoft OneNote for compiling outlines, character sketches, and research.

The software gods must have heard my prayers.  Scrivener released a beta for Windows, and although it doesn't have all the features of the most current Mac version,  the software is impressive.  Project templates are included for various types of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and scriptwriting as well as miscellaneous and blank templates.  I've been using the short story template and find myself using the text view more than the corkboard or outline views as I'm free-writing.  I anticipate using the other views more as I edit.

What I like most about the software:

• Research, character and setting sketches, outlines--basically everything that goes into my story--can be kept together as a specific project.
• Scenes can be described in notes, and it's easy to move the scenes around or simply exclude them from the final compilation.
• The snapshot feature allows you to capture a version of the manuscript before you start making changes, so if you don't like what you've done during editing, you can go back to the un-mucked-up version.
• The search feature makes it easy to find specific parts of the manuscript.

I wish I'd been using this software when I wrote my novels.  Editing would have been much easier.  So far the only thing I've had a problem with while working in Scrivener is eye fatigue.  My keyboard's zoom feature doesn't work with the program, and I haven't looked into how/whether I can enlarge the text without actually changing the font.  For now, I'm just taking it as a signal to step away from the screen and get a fresh cup of coffee or toss the rope bone for Sadie . . . maybe built in breaks are another of the things I like.

I've hardly touched upon the software's features.  For more information, take a look at this introductory video.

The End . . . Or is It?

Over the weekend I finished the rough draft of a book I've been working on for more than a year, and yet this morning feels like every other Monday.  No great sense of accomplishment or closure or loss.  Finishing the rough draft of my first novel, I'd mourned for days--missing the characters, the story, the experience of writing and daunted by the idea of editing.  It seems odd to feel nothing upon finishing this manuscript, but I suppose I've come to realize the ending of a rough draft is no ending at all.

I'm planning to let the manuscript rest for a couple weeks (or a month if I can hold off that long) before I start reading it.  In the meantime I'll be working on short stories, a form I haven't worked in outside a few college assignments long ago.  Writing shorts should be good practice, and I'm hoping it will help me tighten my plot pacing.  I'm really looking forward to a few weeks of something different.

Photo by Alex Basnett

Since it's a Monday like all other Mondays, I'm bound to offer a writing prompt.  Imagine a scenario that, in life, you'd consider an ending and begin your writing exercise there.  You might take the narrative backward and show how things arrived at that end, or you might re-think the "ending" as a beginning of something new.  Play around with the idea without too much directed thought and see where it takes you.  

Joshua Bell

Yesterday I attended a performance by Joshua Bell.  My last-minute tickets landed me in the second row, where I could see his shifting expressions--the almost grimacing tightness around eyes melting as the cadence mellowed.  I could hear his breath flow into the music.  Sometimes I'd realize I wasn't seeing him at all but I'd gone off somewhere, following the music into dreamed-up worlds.  Sometimes I'd wonder what he experienced as he played.  I supposed he was wholly in the moment--in the music--just as I lose myself in writing on those days when the writing flows.

 Though it's very different from yesterday's performance, I like this take on "Eleanor Rigby".  Have a listen and jot down the images that come to mind.