Writers - I want to be one!

Writers, a strange, driven batch of folk—words jammed up in their heads and hearts, tumbling over one another in a rush to emerge onto paper—into the computer. Truly strange folk—ones who go to the dictionary, driven by curiosity, not quite idle, to find a word's root or origin but get distracted on their way to the word by five other words and their origins—by the possibility of using a new word in an old sentence—or an old word in a new way.
Writers look at people and see stories, look at skies and see settings.
Writers, a strange, driven batch of folk.
I want to be one.

Music for Writing

Fiction has a soundtrack, sometimes. I once wrote a novel (Mountain Man) while listening to Massive Attack's "100th Window" over and over (probably eighty or ninety listens as I wrote those 63,000 words). Before that, I once wrote a short story while listening to a single track -- "Seti I" by Banco de Gaia.

The readers never know, but the story and the music intertwine in the writer's memory, so when the writer hears the music later, the writer remembers the story... and if you read the story, sometimes you hear the music.

Other works seem to require silence.

Now, I'm writing my current novel (Point of Divergence, which the other authors of this blog know well) while listening to "electronic breakbeat jazz" artist Jonah Dempcy, also known as Revolution Void.

He's not for everyone, but since I really like widgets (and because maybe now I can listen on my own blog if my cute little red refurbished Sansa mp3 player ever bites the dust), I put a Jamendo widget below that plays his music.

Pirates, Knights, Minotaurs? Oh my.

Ever since I found this on screenwriter John August's blog, I've been trying to find a way to apply it to my writing.

I give up.

But I still love looking at it... which is why I'm passing it on here. Now you can play the game too: how many of these characters are in your novel?

On Storytelling...

I recently posted a rant (I'll be honest) about the lousiness of storytelling with particular focus on the 2009 movie "Knowing".

One of the things I hit on was the value of telling a story AND telling it well. As an author, I'm always striving to tell my stories in the most engaging and entertaining way possible with as few holes in my plot as possible.

Suspension of disbelief is more than trying to get one's audience to buy into your fiction. It extends to getting your audience to forget how boring your story might be if it was told in any other way.

There are some incredibly dull stories out there told in utterly brilliant ways and that's what keeps the audience tuned in.

In line with this, a friend recommend a four-part series posted on YouTube where Ira Glass (of NPR's this American Life) speaks on storytelling. Though he's particular to radio, the art of telling the story extends to all media.

Ira Glass:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Jarucia

Happy Birthday

"I've gathered you here to achieve one goal: to destroy Superman!"

Oops, wait... wrong Legion.

This is the Legion of Plume, see? It's a whole play-on-words thing -- we writers dig that.

This blog is our writing group's place to put neat stuff. I'd add more, but I'm drafting my novel now... so more later.

While you're waiting, here's some advice from Stephen King.