Lost in Translation

Something odd has happened in a few of the queries I've sent out for a picture book. There's a bit of confusion about one of the particulars of the character's home.

Maybe it's my fault for not starting out with the spotlight on the right character, I don't know, but I didn't expect it to be this difficult to understand.

In the MS, the house is described twice:

"Turtletop house" - which apparently translates to "A house with a turtle shell on top of it for a roof".

And:

"Turtleshell floors" - which apparently translates into "Your MC slaughtered a turtle and mounted his shell on the floor. Parents will hate you."

All I can say is that it's a huge, resounding NO! on both counts.

In another book of the series (Yes, I said series. I don't care if it's taboo, kids like series.) it's a bit more clear when it starts: "In a house on a turtle..." (There's a very simple, and plot-centric reason that the house is on a wandering turtle, but that's not important here.)


I can't convince myself that a kid would have these very grown-up hang-ups. So what is it that happens to most adults when they pass 25 that makes them terrified that every thing could be taken the wrong way?

To make it clearer, I'm going to include a visual aid in my next queries. I think he's a very cute house turtle. :-P

Confessions of a Serial Writer

Hi. My name is Josie M (*Hi, Josie*) and I have ideas... lots of ideas. So many that I'm addicted to them.

My ideas' favorite pass time is popping up in the middle of executing another idea. I'll be typing away, fingers flying across the keyboard, word count climbing so fast I think I might be able to finish a rough draft in a matter of days (Ha!) and then... one stray thought will spark a tangent and a completely new story starts outlining itself in my head. If this has never happened to you (and don't pretend it hasn't) it's both exciting and highly annoying.

The phantom idea is a crafty thing - a truly brilliant military strategist that knows the precise moment it can strike with greatest efficiency. It searches out weak points such as the time it takes to delete a word and replace it with one where the letters aren't transposed or during the time I've set aside to stomp most of the "that" from my WIP. But the coup, that pervasive ambushing of the thought train that cuts all supply lines to the current WIP, comes when the phantom idea weasels its way into the natural flow of things. It's a sneak attack executed in perfect time so that I never see it coming.

While working on one story, I'll think "what if" _____ happened instead of _____, and that's all it takes. A phantom idea is born to fill those blanks. Like all newborns, this idea feels entitled to all of my attention and refuses to take a back seat to its predecessors. It interrupts me at all times of the day until I stop long enough to sketch out some semblance of the idea that may or may not be used elsewhere.

The partner to this sort of interruption is the "future" scene that's not due to be written yet. I'll write down what I believe is an insignificant piece of information, and suddenly, I'm getting ideas about how that piece of information is now vital in about eight chapters. There's nothing to do but write out a couple of paragraphs for that future chapter (Because these flares are never available for recall at will. They work on their timetable, not mine.) and wonder why my throw away character has developed his own voice, personality, friends, and emotional death scene. (Yes, I'm talking to you Nameless Guy in the 3rd Row who was supposed to bite it off screen and meant only to be referred to in the past tense after you died.)

I know this all sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not. I'd never wish to be without new ideas (I might, however, alter their delivery schedule). Ideas are as essential to a writer as air and water.

For a long time, all of those stray thoughts and plot points were relegated to hot pink, neon yellow, and fiery orange Post-It notes stuck around my room. (World's ugliest wall paper. Seriously.) People gave me strange looks and tried to inch close enough to figure out what these odd slips of paper in chains that reached the floor could possibly mean. Most gave up when they realized it's easier to read Morse Code than my handwriting and backed out of my space just in case they were some arcane knowledge they were better off living without.

Now, I've found software that replaces all of those Post-Its (my walls were butter cream, who knew) and allows me to open "chapters" at will so I can file those random bursts of information for later use with little to know interruption in my concentration.

*brace for cheesy, cliched sports logic*

You know what they say "The best defense is a good offense."

Technical Difficulties

That should have been the subtitle for yesterday.


***WARNING: This is me ranting. If you don't like to read rants, back away slowly***

Between my computer revolting on me (I am not a tyrant no matter what it says!) and the blackout at the restaurant Mom took me to... just GRRRRRRR. Thankfully the blackout was short lived, but the computer issues stubbornly refused to resolve themselves until this morning.

My computer isn't new, but I love it. It's a lovely desktop (yes, some of us still use the clunky things) that still runs XP. Yesterday, my CD/DVD-R/RW drive decided it wanted to drop the "R/RW" function. It would read, but not write. It wouldn't even recognize the drive as a functioning component.

This was a clear violation of my computer's contract. (It's a very simple contract. I type things, the computer displays them on screen and agrees to let me save them at will. It's not rocket science.)

I tried reasoning with it. I tried threatening it with physical injury.... nothing.

I un-enabled / enabled the drive... nothing.

I uninstalled / re-installed... nothing.

I hit Google and found suggestions on how to fix ranging from numerous 3 letter combinations that stood for things I don't know (DMA, PIO, CPR, DOA, ETC - all = TKO for my poor VAIO) to blaming it on Norton's firewall. Not sure why a firewall would affect a CD drive, but you don't argue with the Google Fu. (<--- sarcasm).

I looked for help on tech threads of a message board I use. The outlook was grim. Virtual lilies were on the way in the form of a lovely, yet somber, wreath with another 3 letter combo I did recognize - RIP.

But... it was just a baby. Not even a decade old. (That's 2071 in computer years, you know. Older than Methuselah and hopefully as resilient.)

By this morning, it was still no closer to functional and I was about resigned to wiping the hard drive. I HATE wiping the hard drive.

So, as a last ditch "why not", I checked Microsoft's site and what'd'ya know. My "automatic" updates have gotten lazy lately. They missed A DOZEN of them - apparently a new driver among them. So, YAY - crisis over. Bad karma purged. Life goes on.

/rant.

Comments

Comments are better than lithium for lifting a mood. (Not that I've ever taken lithium to lift my mood, but that's what it does, right?)

I watched Julie and Julia, and one scene in particular struck me. It's her first entry on the "Julie and Julia Project" where she acknowledges that she's pretty much talking to herself, for herself. Then the next day she gets a comment... from her mother, telling her she's wasting her time and to stop blogging.

(Okay, that's two scenes, but they're about the same thing.)

I just have to say, it's a great feeling to have people comment on posts here. When anyone starts one of these blogs, they're talking to dead air and have no reason to expect that to ever change. Unless the person in question is a celebrity of some kind there's really no expectation that anyone would ever take interest in the ramblings of some random person on a free site. Seeing any number other than (0) beside the comment count is a surprise to me - a HAPPY one - and I'm grateful to those of you who have taken time to comment here. My highest count so far is (5), but every one of them is like an individual shot of adrenaline.

Will I ever get to the point that I'm getting 50+ per entry? Who knows? If I do, then that'll be a day I'm very hyper and my family will wonder what's gotten into me, I'm sure. And if my post the next day is slightly incoherent, then you'll all know you helped contribute to my lunacy. :-P

Thank you.

Voice

AKA - the bane of an author's existence.

You can plot a storyline. You can research location and vocation. You can come up with a great name for you main character and you can have a solid concept, but without "voice" the book falls flat. Most people mentally "hear" the words of a book as they read it. If you don't believe that, read a best seller then watch the movie made out of it and see if something feels "off" with the casting because it doesn't match what's in your head. Better yet, go to the library and check out an audio book version of something you've already read and see how long it takes you to cringe because the reader's voice sounds "wrong".

Voice is key, but no one really knows how to explain what it is or how to achieve the effect if it doesn't come naturally.

People who read my writing in progress tell me the voice is great, then follow that with an immediate "How do you do that?" I could very easily give them a toss-away (and egotistical) response about how it just "happens", but that's not entirely true.
The truth is, I borrow my voice from others.

People tend to think of writing as a visual medium, and to a certain extent it is, but it's also the current incarnation of the traditional storyteller -- a very audible medium. The bonfires and flash powder may not be part of the average reader's experience when he/she curls up with a novel to step out of life for a few hours, but the foundation is still there. If you're going to be a good storyteller (and you most definitely can be one without being a good writer), you have to be a good listener.

Cadence and rhythm are vital to good writing - this is why one of the most common pieces of advice for writers is to read their work out loud to see if it sounds like real speech. Readers will stumble over "do not" if they know it should be "don't"; it's a visual stutter of sorts.

What I do, and I swear it's as easy as it sounds, is pick a character from a movie or a TV-show and "cast" them as the narrator of a given passage. After it's written, then I read it back in the imagined speaking voice of that character and alter it to fit their speech pattern. For example, the short story a couple of posts down about the life of a wish. In my mind, that's written to sound like the voice over from The Lord of the Rings film (Galadriel's voice). Read it with that in mind and you can make up your own mind whether or not I succeeded.

Hopefully this makes some kind of sense, and hopefully it's of some use to someone out there.

:-P

Sketching Ideas

Sometimes an idea takes the form of words - description or dialogue. Sometimes it's a little more abstract. This is an example of the latter. It's the beginnings of an idea for something that started with an image instead of character or plot.

Sure it's not quite perfect, and it's sort of lopsided here and there, but ideas are like that. They come out in various stages of completion and inspire further development of things that never would have been considered without them as a jumping of point.

In this case, it was part of the creation of a genie story. I had the idea for this pretty purple bottle, sketched it out and painted it in Photo Impact. (For full illustrations, I usually use Prisma Colors). Of course, words are necessary to make the story, but they're not always necessary to start it.

Outlining, or the Lack Thereof

After spending time on Absolute Write*, I've discovered that writers fall into 2 categories: Those who outline and those who don't. And the 2 don't always get along when the subject of outlining comes up. Tempers flare, middle ground disappears, accusations of little intelligence fly, mod-sticks come out... no one's happy.

For myself, I've always been in the "no outline" category. I like an organic approach to writing that lets the story happen as it happens. I might sketch out a summary/synopsis in advance, but beyond that, I don't like outlines. (I tend to think of them more rigid than they actually are.) However, yesterday, I located a Post-It pad that was apparently made for The Jolly Green Giant. (Technically it's made for those presentation easels, but come on... it's a sticky note pad. They should not be that big.)

I tacked the thing to my wall and started writing out notes on it about the scenes I'd already figured out. Suddenly, other things started filling in the gaps. The plot laid itself out in a somewhat structured path from beginning to end.

Gah... I was outlining!!!

About a month ago, I downloaded a trial of a program called Liquid Story Binder which lets you save each part of a book as a separate document. One of the functions is an outline builder. I plugged in the parts I'd put down on the Post-It and more plot points popped up. Not sure if I'll become a regular outliner, but for at least yesterday it worked pretty well.



* Absolute Write is an awesome resource for writers. One I'll promptly link to once (and if) I ever figure out how to make a link thingy in my side bar. If you have writing questions or need help hashing out a plot, that's the place to go. It's also got great information about specific agents and publishers to help you figure out which ones are good fits and which ones aren't quite so legit.