Stories: craft or flash?

If I could talk to other writers the question I would most want to ask is how their stories get written. Stories are often, I should think always, born long before they're written. It's the writing that takes the time. I've got a minimum of fifty outlines scattered across my ancient laptop. Some are merely a sentence, others a title. Some have a dialogue, others a summary. The problem is taking this mismatched information and turning it into something that could actually be called a story.

I'm certain, even without asking, that every writer has a process. Even more, I'm certain that every writer's process is different. Having spent six years of my life in academia I've heard a lot of different stories about how people write an essay. What I've learned is that whether you start with your primary sources, your conclusion, your historiography, there is a general format to be followed. Stories are much more open and I imagine the process for creating them is less restrictive as well (although I once heard of a grad student that had to sit on her bathroom floor in a feathered hat in order to write).

For me, stories are written two ways. First, sitting down and writing. Setting aside a specific portion of my day to write. Unfortunately, inspiration is not a prerequisite for these sessions. You can arrive at your computer with absolutely no idea what you're going to write. Those moments when the little curser is blinking on the blank document page, waiting for you to direct it are probably the bette noire of many an accomplished writer. The fact of the matter is, no matter how creative you might be, no matter how amazing your ideas, writing actually takes discipline. You need to be able to sit down for the hour that you've allowed yourself and create something, whether it's a character description, some back-story, or a few pages of dialogue. Maybe it's just nailing down the names for those mercenaries you've had trekking through a bog for the last seven weeks.

It's not particularly exhilarating, but when you come back to it the next day it's exciting to see what you've accomplished. Sometimes those hours of grinding out the necessary elements of storycraft can even gift you with your best chapters. Or shake loose an epiphany. Persistence is part of it and although less glamorous than wild inspiration that causes your fingers to fly over the keys for hours on end, this crafting of lore and legend is the staple of every writer. Or at least it's the staple of my writing.

Second and also indispensible are what I call flashes. For any of you out there that have watched NBC's Chuck, you'll already know what a flash is. Essentially, it's like your whole "everything" freezes for a few seconds while you're struck with a mind-blowing flash of knowledge. It's like watching a movie scene at warpspeed or downloading an insane amount of information, almost more than you can process.

Flashes are amazing and frustrating at the same time. They're amazing because, well, who says no to inspiration? They're frustrating because the images, the voices, the faces, the scene, the dialogue are so clear in my mind that it's almost impossible for words to recreate them to my satisfaction. They also tend to be fairly random and disjointed so I really have no idea where they fit in the marvelous labyrinth of all of my crafted work. The worst part is, sometimes they don't...lol.

Having met only a few writers who will admit to being writers (we tend to be a skittish breed), I find it hard to gauge whether my process is normal or if I'm an aberration. Given my oddities in other areas, being an aberration wouldn’t surprise me, but maybe I’m making things harder on myself than need be. Although, having written a 25 chapter novella (that is God awful and you are never seeing! Curses to teenage angst :P) by the time I was seventeen, maybe my aberrations are working for me. Either way, it’s the only process I know and although flash hangovers are a bitch and my mind is often a muddle of disjointed scenes, plots, and melodies – I wouldn’t trade it for any other.

Btw – this little drabble was inspired by a flash earlier today while I should have been paying attention to a TA lecture. Perhaps I’ll attempt to get the rough draft of the first little bit down for you and post it sometime this week. For once it was actually an entire scene/chapter rather than just part of one, but I’ll do my best to give you a piece! Cheers~

Photog. Susan Sontag Quote

First, let's be clear. The following quote is not from Susan Sontag. It is one of several quotes that Susan Sontag included at the back of her book On Photography. I still find it intriguing that she formatted things the way she did. I've seen authors include quotes, sometimes as many as a dozen, at the beginning of a chapter. I've never seen in author include a section at the end of their book that's just quotes. No explanation. No introduction. Being a quote fiend I can see the appeal. I love including quotes in everything I do. But to give no reason for including a quote leaves it entirely up to the reader to interpret the quote - not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, it also leaves this reader wondering why in heaven's name she stuck them there!

Regardless, as directed, I have selected one of the quotes from her collection.

"I photograph what I do not wish to paint and I paint what I cannot photograph." Man Ray

I know a little bit about Ray. He was an American born at the end of the 19th century and became a part of the Dada and surrealist movements. As luck would have it, I had to read a couple of the Dada manifestos for one of my seminars this week. Dadism as an art movement was in a sense anti-art and was a rebellion against bourgeois art with its pleasing aesthetic and imperial interests, which many of the Dadaists blamed for WWI. Dada pieces were often jumbled, messy, and not aesthetically pleasing. Dadaists suggested that things like war weren't orderly and beautiful, why should the art that depicted them be? They didn't always try to create a literal represenation of the world, but the world as it was seen, felt, and experienced. A world that direct representations couldn't fully express.

These are the thoughts that were on my mind as I read Ray's quote. The second part, in light of what I know of Ray and his artistic leanings, seems to fit well within the Dada mindset. "I paint what I cannot photograph," the things that photographs can't fully capture or express. I would be interested to know the date for the quote. The first part of the quote, understood within the same context, is less clear.

"I photograph what I do not wish to paint." If I read the second part of the quote assuming that he paints the things that photographs can't fully express, the first part of the sentence would seem to suggest that he paints the things that are simple, plain, and easily understood. I'm not quite satisfied with that interpretation, but it's the only understanding of it I can manage at this point.

On a personal level this quote appealed to me for a differenct reason. If I were to write the sentence about myself I would say that "I photograph what I do not wish to write and I write what I cannot photograph." To me, photography is for the things I can see, touch, and experience, even if a photograph can't full encapsulate what I feel about it or its subject. Writing is for the things I imagine, dream, and create. Intially, I wondered if Ray might have been approaching things the same way, that he painted the things he imagined and used photographs for the things he experienced. However, remembering where Ray fits in history, I'm more inclinced to think his statement has to do with his involvement in Dadaism and surrealism.

Thoughts?

More published imagination....

In response to yesterday's musings regarding imagination, a few comments by more published authorities on the subject.

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. ~ Louisa May Alcott ~

Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein. ~

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust ~

The imagination exercises a powerful influence over every act of sense, thought, reason, -- over every idea. ~ Latin proverb  ~

And my personal favorite...

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ~ Mark Twain ~

Thoughts?

Because earthquakes are really dinosaur ghosts...

One of those friends that is really only a facebook friend - you know, the ones you haven't actually seen or talked to in years - posted a question I'm certain was meant to be humorous this afternoon. "If ghosts exist why aren't there dinosaur ghosts?"

A valid question.

Someone replied, "I think there are. They're called earthquakes."

Instantly, Foucault was gone and in his place was a herd (is it a herd with dinosaurs? a pack? a pride? lol) of dinosaur ghosts tramping about, leaving destruction in their wake. While the destruction would of course be horrible, the image was undeniably humorous, especially since all of my dinosaurs resembled Little Foot, Ducky, Spike, and Sarah. I didn't forget Petrie. He's just not big enough for stomping. I digress.

This whimsical diversion may seem detached from anything of consequence, but it got me thinking - always a danger, I know - what makes something real?

I'm a writer. The places, people, and events that I devise are mere imaginings. Or at least they are in one sense. To me, they are as real as the coffee table next to me where I've thrown Foucault to avoid "accidentally" spilling my turkey soup on it. Are they real? If not when I imagine them, do they become real when I write about them? When what I write about them is published? When they become characters in a film?

A little while ago I was listening to a song on Youtube and in the comments there was a heated debate between two of the commenters. One clearly believed in God, although whether he was Christian, Jewish, or Muslim I couldn't say. The other, clearly did not. The one that didn't made a statement that struck me as odd. He said, "You have a right to believe God exists if you want, but you're wrong. It's just an illusion that can't be proved. You can't see it or touch it, it's not real."

Why not? What makes something real? And who decides it?

Clearly I've been reading too much Foucault, but why can't Alice in Wonderland be as real as the Statue of Liberty? To me, something doesn't have to be corporeal or even visible to be real. If I can imagine it, it's real. Sometimes the imagined becomes real. I'm sure that the Statue of Liberty was imagined before it was built. Sometimes, it's real simply because you imagine it to be.

Being able to believe in the imagined is something you need as a writer. When writing academically imagination is discouraged to a large extent and I've struggled throughout my (albeit brief) academic career, with the need to prove, substantiate, and demonstrate. I don't disagree that this should be part of academia, but sometimes when I'm reading Foucault I'm wishing for a herd of dinosaur ghosts with all my soul.

I believe in ghosts. I believe in Neverland. I believe in dreams, imagination, and flying. I believe in superheroes. I believe that what I create can't be touched, but can be real. I believe that not everything real must be rational. I believe that someday the Remnants shall walk.

Welcome to Bedlam...

Hello all! I've had this little blog set up since October and have yet to write a single word. Now I've written 22. We're already making progress.

I'm not sure what I intended it to be when I began, but recent circumstances have determined what this blog is going to be: a pressure value to hopefully stave off the inevitable explosion of my brain because brain explosions are gooey and I don't have time to clean that mess.

Speaking of mess, what a glorious segue into this blog's title!

A writer's mind, more specifically, this writer's mind. Do, as the subtitle warns, watch your step. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm unbalanced, but to characterize me as abnormal would be no stretch. No one has yet found a proper box to stick me in and thus I spend my life hopping from one box to the next, baffling people as I go. It's fun to watch, but it makes for some rather unnavigable cranium territory.

At 24 I've had more occupations than most retirees, more family calamities than most people who've lived a cetury, and more education than is healthy (which is frightening given that I'm only on the first year of my MA). All of this has contributed to my brain's critical state, but being a writer makes it worse.

On top of UPC codes, family disfuction, illness, semiology, and Joan W Scott I have to share my brain-space with hundreds of characters, plotlines, imagined territories, governments, religious orders, and a horde of stampeding plot bunnies on a rampage. The latter space-takers would all be fine except being an MA student I have no time to indulge them. You may be thinking, you have time to write this ridiculous blog that no one is going to read, so how do you not have time to write your own work?

You, good sir, are clearly not a writer.

It's easy enough to dump absolute tripe into a virtual hole that no one will probably ever fall down. I have in fact done so throughout the day between proposal edits, medieval primary source readings, and visual theory. It's quite another thing to manage to write anything of worth regarding the plotline for the three set triology that is sitting loosely outlined on my harddrive or the theological novella I've been working on for months.

The problem comes when your mind, so accustomed to having time for such frivolities during your undergrad, can't seem to manage to shut that creative part of itself down. Most of the time I do all right. I get through my readings. I write my stiff academic dribble. I teach. I sleep. And then I do it all over again. Then there's the last four and a half weeks where I can't shut it off no matter what I try and end up averaging two hours of sleep a night. I suppose insomnia could be the solution to my time problem, but I really do need to at least TRY to sleep. I've done the no sleeping thing. It doesn't help me or any of the people closest to me (inside my head or out).

Hence I am here, venting into cyberspace. It is my hope that this blog will help alleviate the pain in my brain. No one but a writer can truly understand the unbearable din of having hundreds of irrate characters - some of whom you haven't even been introduced to yet - shouting obsceneties at you while trying to do, well, anything. I'm going to try to post a few times a week. If you're looking for consistency of content look elsewhere. You may find a word I particularly liked, a description of a scene that popped into my head, or a whinging diatrabe much like this one.

You never know what you'll find, but I'd be thrilled if you join me on the journey. Perhaps once I'm finally done educating myself I'll have time to start writing publishable material and can switch the title to Inside an Author's Mind.

Until then...welcome to Bedlam.