BARNS

Reading: Leviathan by, Scott Westerfeld
On the Farm: Morning dogs on patrol
Thinking About: The motorcade for one of our small town fallen in Afghanistan, Spc. Aaron Aamot, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division killed November 5.

Returning to my previous post about visual art as stimulation for the writing mind, I took one tiny step toward a project I have been planning and thinking about for five years.

When my twins were babies and eldest was a toddler, I found it impossible to get them down for their morning nap. Eldest was needy, the house was too loud, no one could settle down. And so I took off from my old Victorian home in the city and began driving the north country, those two lane, winding roads I had never seen before. And as eldest and I sipped our coffee and hot cocoa and she looked through her pile of books I was struck by a recurring theme.

Barns.

The barns I saw were magnificent structures—enormous sky scrapers of wood. But the thing about them that really astounded me was that they were all falling down. Each one leaned precariously, windows long broken out, boards warped and bent from the rain, foundations cracked, and a sense of abandonment on their faces. I’d had a romantic vision of the countryside - I imagined white picket fences, perfectly painted red barns, cute old farm houses. But the real face of rural America is often something far less glamorous.

I fell in love with these barns and dreamed of photographing then in their decay and even returning years later to see how much further they were leaning, whether anyone decided to replace the roofs or drag away the rusted tractors.

I never felt I could stop to take these pictures because I had three babies in the car and the thrum of the engine is what kept those babies sleeping, and what helped me keep a tenuous hold on my sanity.

But I’ve never forgotten them. And when I moved to the countryside and saw more barns each time I went to the store or drove the kids to school, the itch to capture them became stronger.

I have a love story with photography and that’s part of the tale of the camera and barns. When I was seventeen, I moved to a new state, started my senior year at a new high school, my mother had cancer and I was desperately unhappy. Someone handed me a camera, a Cannon AE1 and a bag full of lenses (I think these had been my father's) and I enrolled in the high school photography class.

I fell in love. I spent every spare moment, when not reading, taking pictures. I got a macro lens for Christmas and disappeared into the state park behind my house for hours at a time (the only bonus of having a desperately sick mother is that no one knew where I was or what I was doing). I photographed the city, the fountains, the people, anything I could capture in my lens.

When I graduated early from high school I enrolled in a community college photography class and took a job as a waitress in a women’s private club (think pink double breasted uniforms with little white aprons).

I somehow convinced the dish washers to pose nude for me (when I was only 17!) and started working on portrait photography.

I also photographed the first gulf war protest in the streets of Portland and used this portfolio and my work on the school newspaper to get accepted to the school of journalism at the University of Oregon (um, and then immediately switched to English and put away the camera for my poet’s beret).

Returning to photography now (which I was so set on embarking on this morning but the light betrayed me) is getting me in touch with both a visual artistic element that’s been dormant but also reconnecting me with those feelings of isolation, loneliness and need for artistic expression I felt as a teen.

The one thing I regret (and also love for the effortlessness of it) is the turn to digital imagery. There was something necessary in the delayed gratification of first developing negatives (was there enough contrast?) and then moving onto the proof sheets (was there a good image amongst them?) choosing the best image (out of 100’s), printing it again and again until it was just right, and then printing it one more time on the good paper I reserved for only the most perfect prints.

I had my own darkroom when I was 17 and I spent most of my time either in the dark or behind the lens and there’s really no better place to hide when you’re already feeling alone. It made me feel apart of the life going on around me, even when I was only the observer.

So the barn project? It’s tapping into all sort of emotions and creative space in my brain and now I’m only waiting for a sufficiently overcast day to fill up on all the decrepit, neglected, lonely barns I can find.

And on a TOTALLY unrelated note, does anyone out there use voice recognition software? I think this is what I want for a holiday present to use for developing better dialogue. Thoughts?

PANIC!

Come on over to Pentales today and read my new post about Writer's That Like to Panic.

SCBWI WESTERN WASHINGTON RETREAT WEEKEND

Reading: Leviathan by, Scott Westerfeld
On the Farm: My poor dead hen and my poor terrified hen that has not come out of her hutch
Thinking About: NaNoWriMo

I got back last night from a really fantastic retreat with Cheryl Klein and Ruta Rimas, and organized by the fabulous Jolie Stekly. The Western Washington SCBWI is an outstanding chapter and the retreat was invaluable (can't wait until next year!).

There's a lot to process and my mind is anxious to get onto the application of all these new lessons and ways of writing and revising—and I was lucky to have a very lengthy drive home and a bit of time to process last night.

It occurred to me that my writing, pretty much all of it, even down to my poetry and back-up to my novels, share a common thematic element. The revelation of this is really helping me hone in on what drives my characters and voice.

There are so many ways to analyze writing—you can look at it thematically, at the sentence level, at the image level, as a whole work, and on and on. But to step back and look at the common thread throughout a collection of writing offers a different kind of perspective and it's this common thread that speaks a great deal to a writers life experience and where and how it appears through plot and characterization.

Now that I see this theme I can write to it more deliberately. I understand my characters struggles, what they are trying to accomplish is a broad sense and where their areas of growth are. Both editors spoke about the evolution of a character and how necessary it was to have this growth to complete the emotional arc in a novel. Being able to see my theme (for lack of a better word) in neon lights, means that now I can underatnd where my characters are beginning their journey, where they wish to be and what must be reconciled to get there.

And oh! am I so excited to get back to work.

*image courtesy of Alderbrook Resort http://www.alderbrookresort.com

FERAL BOOKS

Reading: Everafter by, Amy Huntley
On the Farm: How to manage a 90 pound puppy that likes to climb in bed
Thinking About: Steampunk



Go check out Pentales today. We're talking about werewolves, zombies and classic literature!

NaNoWriMo

Reading: Fire by, Kristin Cashore
On the Farm: 27 eggs (forgot to collect for a couple days there)
Thinking About: Upcoming writing retreat at Alderbrook Resort!!!!

It's time to NaNoWriMo! Well, actually, it was time to start on Sunday. I was able to sneak away for a bit and get off to a good start.

NaNo is a weird one for me, as I've blogged about before, because I'm an obsessive editor—I find it excruciating to move forward (chapter to chapter) until I have something highly readable and not the least bit embarrassing. The very nature of NaNo makes such a thing laborious and time consuming (although admittedly, it might be laborious under any circumstances). Just like last year, I'm willing to give it a shot anyway and see if its all drivel in the end.

My hope is that by challenging myself to write in a different way I might open up some new neural pathways and zing a few more creative thoughts around in my head.

In preparation, I also created a playlist and printed off a few dozen visual images related to my plot (again, another technique to try and access some little corners of my creative mind that may have been dormant since childhood). I'd show you a panorama of my very cool web images, but then I'd have to kill you, because they are so cool you'd probably be able to figure out my whole plot just from the pics alone, write the book faster than me and have it off to editors before I can sneeze.

Never mind . . . you wouldn't do something like that. Only trolls steal good novel ideas. Jealous little trolls.

Here's a website for any fantasy writers out there that would like a little visual stimulation. I stumbled across this artist recently and was struck by the similarities between visual art and plot—this guy has clearly created a story with his paintings and various worlds that are similar but unlike our own. Check out the piece called Millennium Watchman.

Come on over and friend me at elisemurphybooks. Happy NaNo!

WORLD BUILDING 101

Reading: The Flood by, Margaret Atwood (Still)
On the Farm: Asian Pears
Thinking About: My broken car

I am often torn when it comes time to sit down and write for the day. I love to just dig in with both hands, dirty myself up to my elbows and write like the keys are on fire. I edit. I write. I edit some more. I write some more. I have a cherry flavored Coca Cola Zero. I write.

I find it much more difficult to back away from the keyboard for a few days and just think about my world. However, the more experienced I become as a writer, the more I am learning the absolute necessity of the space between the words.

World building is an incredibly creative time in the writing process, but it is wholly different from the writing itself. For me, it requires millions of notes—both hand written and typed. I make maps, and diagrams of plot arc. I make lists of character traits, world rules, common interests, differences between my characters, arc of emotional growth, rules and edicts.

This can be somewhat tedious—it has none of the joyful abandon of just writing without looking back. It engages a different part of my brain, a more logical side and I often find that logic and creativity are uncomfortable bed fellows.

My internal dialog often goes like this, "I'll just come back and figure out later why character X said that about character Y. I can just fix that later when I understand it better myself." And then myself will argue back, "No! Understand it now before you decide to go off on some other tangent. Figure out if X said that because of her jealousy of Y or if it's because she secretly loves Y or because she has a terminal case of parasitic disease that makes her say the opposite of what she believes."

As I'm working on a new project, I'm trying really hard to avoid all of this internal chit chat. I am working hard on knowing my characters, their histories, the names and places of their births, the political system they live in, their hopes and dreams, what makes them uncomfortable and how they cope with stress.

World building applies to all novels. The term gets used most often in relation to Speculative Fiction and Fantasy, but anyone that writes fiction, creates a fictional time and place, must build their world from scratch. Yes, you can assume all modern conveniences are available to your MC in a contemporary YA, but which ones does she have? Do her parents love her? Did his dog just die? It's all world building.

Several years ago, at the SCBWI WA State conference, I attended a fantasy workshop led by Laini Taylor. My favorite tidbit that I took away from her talk was the list of 100 things. When you're stuck, or when you're stretching for details about your characters or world, write down 100 things about that person or place.

I've been doing this exercise religiously—from character to character, city to city, plot point to plot point. Go try it.

You'll generate sensory details, smells, motivations, histories. Treat it as a free write. A time to let your mind wander and a time to engage all of your senses.

Taking the time to let the words sit is an excellent way to learn what's meant to fit between all those words. What exists in your world that isn't being said? What is the subtext of your plot? Unless you sit quietly occasionally, in between the marathon writing sessions, you'll never find the mental space to learn your world and your characters inside and out.

I try to remind myself that very often what isn't said is as important to meaning as what is said. Imagine you're writing your novel long hand, and skipping lines as you go (like in first grade). Then imagine that the writing on those blank lines is extra description and explanation but it's all in invisible ink. No one will ever see it.

Can't you imagine how important those empty lines are?

LIFE ON THE FARM - AUTUMN

Reading: The Flood by, Margaret Atwood (WOW)
On the Farm: just mud
Thinking About: Morality and Compassion

It's been awhile since we visited Life on the Farm. Over the last few days, I've been thinking about why, and it's occurred to me that I lost touch with farm life over the summer.

Summer is the time where anyone can experience farm life. It's easy to drive out to the berry farms, or visit the vegetable stands, tour vineyards and gardens, pick peaches, visit a petting zoo. The weather is mild, the rewards are great and it makes for memorable summer adventures.

We did spend our summer this way. We watched the goats in the pasture, tipped our heads back and let our eyes circle along with the hawks in the sky, ate fresh vegetables, traded eggs and squash for the neighbor's tractor, hoed the garden when it cooled down in the evening. We experienced all things pure and simple in farm life.

Now Autumn has descended with a vengeance. In the space of a day the temperature dropped thirty degrees and the rain came. Biblical rain. It hasn't stopped yet this week. Mud is everywhere and I can't collect the eggs without full rain gear and muck boots. The goats need some grain and hay because they hate to get their hoofs wet and will stay inside all day if they feel it's too soggy. The dogs have to be toweled down and we're trying to teach the pup how to guard her flock from the covered front porch when it's raining so hard you can't see through it. The hens have decided that perhaps they'd like to slow down on the laying and the only animals that seem truly ecstatic are the ducks. Water + duck = happiness.

Now this is what farm living is about for me! It's easy to pretend in the summer months, to engage with the land when the weather is mild and the days are long. It's another thing altogether to be forced out into the elements everyday to deal with livestock.

And what I've realized about this Autumn, Winter, and Spring living is that I've missed it. I like the hard work, the stumbling around in the dark, the chill, and most of all the necessity of me, a hobby farmer, in the lives of the animals.

Autumn has always been my most creative time and that extends to home life as well as my writing. Darkness is descending, it's time to pull the shutters and crank closed the windows, a time to cook hearty foods, process the apples, talk to the animals and check their hooves and feathers, stand in the rain in the moonlight and breathe in air so fresh and clear that it fills the head with a cool breeze, feel a shuddering chill and then the warm flush on your cheeks when you step in front of the fire, dry your boots by the stove, scrape the mud from your cuffs, and allow your mind to wander to all those places that only come in the low light and quiet of the cooling weather.

When is your most creative time?