Columns for September,
2004
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archives here)
| AN INCH AN HOUR
September 5, 2004 [Quick note: Some people hate NaNoWriMo. I have never heard a reason for this that is worthy of my respect. If you're one of those people, I encourage you to read on, and pester me with questions.] Also: I'm looking at you, TempuS.
Confluence. I had set up Labour Day Weekend as the time when I would start gearing up for NaNoWriMo. More to the point, as Municipal Liaison, I was going to start planning November and the 2-month rampup. So what is this in my Inbox? An email from the NaNo ML coordinator. It's that time of year again! I'm told the site has been revamped. National Novel Writing Month. I haven't checked it yet; that's a treat I'm saving for Monday. For those of you who don't read my column every single time, National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, is a project in which thousands of people each agree to write a 50 000-word novel in one month, from midnight November First to midnight December First. This confuses people. They ask, "Why?" They ask, "Is it a contest?" and "Is there a prize?" They ask, "Do you get published?" They ask, "Only a month?" The website will answer all of these questions in exhaustive detail, if you don't already know the answer from 'Show osmosis or actual participation. I am here today to deflate some of the misconceptions: 1. NaNoWriMo people are weird.
1. NaNoWriMo people are weird.
While it is true that some NaNos don't plan properly and wind up letting
people down in November, I'm proud to say I've never done that, and I've
met more people who haven't than people who have. NaNo teaches you to schedule.
Other NaNos go overboard with their enthusiasm, but again this is only
something I've heard about second-hand. What would you rather hear from
somebody: Complaints about the job or thrilling tales of objectives met?
The question is not, "Why are you always talking about this?" The question
is, "Why don't more people talk about the things that make them happy?"
Who's really the weirdo?
2. NaNoWriMo participants just write any old crap.
"Quantity not quality! Accidental quality is acceptable." I think Tal coined that one. I came up with, "No retreat, no revision, no regret." Because if you sit down to write a Masterpiece, you won't write a damn thing. But if you say to yourself that it really doesn't matter, that you can just write whatever nonsense pops into your mind, then suddenly you find yourself typing, and then a second sentence follows, a paragraph. Five paragraphs. Ohmigod, don't look now, but you're writing! And somewhere along the line, a wonderful thing happens. You enter a magical state. (I am speaking literally, here.) The words flow, and you feel confident, or more to the point you have forgotten to feel self-conscious, and things start to go in beautiful directions. Characters say things your intellect never would have thought up, but you are now able to channel. You occasionally pleasantly surprise yourself. You develop a sense of pride. And then the next day, you sit down in front of that computer, and you say to yourself, "God, I suck." Because you've forgotten that there was a hurdle the day before. But then you resume lying to yourself, "Hey! I'm allowed to write crap; I'm supposed to write crap." So you write, and it's an uphill slog again for the first half hour. Some days are better than others. But the point is that the acceptance of poor writing is a mind game you play with yourself. The difference is that unlike most mind games, this one actually works for you. Yeah, bad writing is better than no writing. So we talk loud and long (so much so that we don't use adverbs) about how bad the stuff we're writing is, but there ain't a grain of truth to it. Some NaNos don't get that. They think NaNo is a race, or that just copy/pasting
from websites into a document is somehow meeting the purpose of the exercise.
Every group has its members who have missed the point. I am proud to say
I have met no such people in Montreal.
3. You don't need to take part in NaNoWriMo to write.
4. The purpose of participating in NaNoWriMo is to write a 50 000-word
novel.
Baker's 12 is also a serial. That means I am (self-)obliged to write it weekly. This is part of the discipline we learned is so important. We? Oh, yes, there are now three other NaNos who have taken the plunge into serial writing: - Tal, with The
Sensational Squirrelman: Sins of the Past
Living life on the edge, loving every scary, frustrating, beautiful moment. That's what a serial is. That's what NaNo is. You see, we have learned that when we believe in something, we can achieve it. And we are doing so. Tal is going to pursue his life's ambition in California, I have figured out what my goal in life is, and Ceri has figured out hers. When she answers the phone, she says, "Penslingers." I'm going to start doing the same. It's the name we've given to our band of merry artists. And it works. That's the power of belief, and experience. Ignore the misconceptions, the superficiality, and pay attention to the experience. Sure, NaNoWriMo hurts some of the time, but it's supposed to. That's how transformation works.
Ooh, the suspense is mounting. Baker's 12: Week 66 Caution: Swashin'. PG for Peril CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
The ice bridge calls me.
CURTAIN CALL
I grew up in front of an audience. Some people grow up between the ages of 6 or so and 18 or so; I didn't really start until I was 13. It lasted until I was 22. You see, it's all Theatre. I was taught to make an entrance by a dramatic man; he was the high school Drama and English teacher, JW. He wore burgundy (not oxblood), liked his top three buttons un~, and of course had the air of the theatre about him. Homeroom, Grade 9 Advanced English, first day, he walks in with his hips swinging from side to side and his keys twirling in his hand. We all thought he was swish, of course, as one does. He wasn't. But I suspect he liked to cultivate the rumour. I was 13. Before I turned 14 six weeks later I'd written an essay a week for his class and learned what a foil was among an incredible quantity of literary devices the other classes weren't lucky enough to be learning. Trial by fire. The following year I took his Drama class. Coupla surprises there. The class joker (who I expect I would appreciate much more now) told me after one improv that I had an "aura" on stage. Then the class keener (who I expect I would still adore) agreed. Then JW said this was true. I resisted the idea, of course, because when you've been taught modesty this is what you do, but it felt good. This is important: I was quiet, studious, and mildly disregarded by my peers in high school. (You would not have recognised me.) I got over it. Surprise the second came the day after I delivered my own little surprise as the class watched my Richard III "Was ever woman... " soliloquy. They were disturbed, not the least of which because they knew the little mouse who was playing him. As class was letting out, JW took me aside and informed me that if I had auditioned for the (legendary) drama club that year, I would have been cast as Iago. This was very, very surprising. Also, as you can imagine, frikkin' upsetting. Particularly since the guy who got the role, DM, was, in my humble opinion, a fine actor, but a bit of a prick. More on him later. The point is, I was beginning to discover something which had never occurred to me: That I had talent. Oh, yeah, that class also taught me how to make entrances and exits. The following year, we were doing The Tempest, and I read the thing and there was only one part I wanted: Caliban. So I did the first audition, and was given Caliban and Prospero speeches to prepare for the callback. I spent much time on the former, not so much on the latter. I flubbed a line as Prospero; never liked the guy much. So I figured if that didn't count against me maybe I had a shot at Caliban. JW Quote: "Caliban, no surprise there, [pronounces my name about as badly as he ever did]." He only said something like this for me, like I was the only shoo-in. Talking with others after, I learned I was the only one who didn't know the part was mine. The day we got our costumes, let me tell you our designer was excellent, so much so that I wound up shuffling along the halls in half-crouch, even biting someone on the kneecap. Remember, I was the quiet guy. DM got Prospero, of course, and our relationship offstage was not so different from onstage. Respected each other's professionalism, but not compatible personalities. He was a methodist, by which I mean he locked himself in his private dressing room when not on stage, and when visible backstage was always in Prospero. I, as you might expect, played cards with the bit parters and getting into character consisted of a deep breath as I parted the curtain. DM did not understand me. I understood him, but couldn't figure out why anyone would feel he had to do that to himself. Not much has changed there. After the show wrapped, one of the, erm, more desirable, girls in my grade had a friend show me her review of my performance. I was surprised because in four and a half years she had never spoken to me; actually she didn't then, but she wanted me to see it. Turns out she wanted to hold and comfort Caliban when he was being tortured. Imagine a nerd finding out an in-crowd girl felt this way. Indeed. Also, I did this animalistic rape jump thing which startled at least one person in the audience I would have the pleasure of meeting before the end of the year, in CEGEP. After graduation came an offer to do a quickie thing for IONA, and then a year passed quietly until I found myself back at IONA. Two plays a year for the next three years, President of the company, Producer of IONA's variety show: "It just needs to be an inch higher," Tal reminds me. Surviving on vitamin C pills and the energy of my idealistic 20s. That details-oriented idealistic guy died in 1994, when I realised the Prez was a figurehead, and I learned to say Enough, resigning and departing. That same year I had my first drunk, which changed my life in a story which is secondary to this one. This was when I fell in with Theatre People, who were about Art and irresponsibility (my word for it; I expect they would have disagreed). They weren't nice people, many of them weren't exactly good people either, but they cured my idealism and set me on the path to razing the shy loser as well. That's when I was 22. I've done more theatre since then, of course. Five plays in one year was my personal record. I'll be doing more theatre, and very soon, if things work out. I've since realised that the only difference between theatre and any other time is that the stage is in sacred space. I suppose I could quote the whole merely players thing, but let me instead ask you whether you speak on the telephone to your grandmother the same way you do to your closest friend or to the bank. We are all different people at different times. So here's the point of this week's column. I put on a persona all the time. That's what I have been taught. I'm not being phony; if I project energy it's because I want to, and if I'm not really feeling it, the fact that I want to is still a reflection of the desired persona, the Me inside saying, "Hey, pick it up." Deep breath, part curtain.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to TempuS and Paze this week for making it all worthwhile. Apparently I have "insouciant brio." Sometimes I swing my hips when I walk.
There is no plot. It is all plots at the same time. All plots are really
one plot.
The ice bridge calls me.
ALMA MATER
Before I go anywhere else, I just want to thank those of you who write in. Not to say I don't appreciate those who pass feedback along orally, or those who read but don't feel moved to respond. I treasure every single one of my readers. I do this for you, after all. But it is especially nice to receive an unexpected email that lets me know in concrete terms that what I do is reaching people. Thanks. And congrats to TempuS for his new endeavours treading the boards. And to the former thespian, I think you'll find that adjective increasingly inappropriate. Onward!
Since I took a walk down memory lane last week, I spent some time this week doing what I'm sure many of us have done: Googling old classmates. A friend I don't keep in touch with often enough recently said he had Googled me a couple of weeks previous and located the Suffix 9 interview. So I wondered what kind of hits my name would generate, and what I would discover about the associates of my past. I was a member of an unique graduating class. The school had a Top Ten board on which one could find the highest academic achievers of the last term, arranged in order from right to left, lowest to highest. The exception being the first one, PW was on the far left for 19 of the terms he spent in that school. I generally occupied the second spot, which was a constant challenge, and not only against myself. This is what I later discovered made the class unique: Not only were eight of the top ten usually male, but the competition was fierce. My former teacher's eyes were wide with the memory of it as he described JR and WH going to the Office and asking questions as soon as the grades were out, wanting to know where they finished (memory has them in spots 3 and 4, with JR possibly third more often than WH). Maybe the competition is a teenage boy thing, maybe I should have put brackets around the word teenage just then, I don't know. But there were 2 other guys who were out to win, win, win as well. I was the least competitive of those 5; PW never seemed to care beyond his own personal achievement. Quite the guy, really. I had known that sometimes JR or WH would go to the Office about the Top Ten, but it's quite the eye-opener to return to your old stomping grounds and discover that teachers are talking about your group in hushed whispers. We had them freaked out for five years. So you understand the type of people I was looking up. Overachievers. Aggressive ones, mainly. Now, when you Google certain names you are not going to get anywhere because there are too many people who will share that name. Also, without histories or pictures, it's hard to confirm whether or not a particular hit does indeed correspond to a classmate you haven't seen in (oh, God!) fifteen years. But I did find two old classmates: PW and JR. They both have Doctorates. I don't have a Doctorate. PW is working at U of T in Psych, my old major. I don't even have a Masters in my old major. JW is a prof at Dal, and has a book out. I have not yet published my book, nor quite finished it. Ahem. Does this jealous, self-deprecating, competitive sheep sound like the same Trapdoor Spider who usually appears in these columns? I bloody well hope not. Fortunately I recovered myself quite quickly, through reminding myself that I decided early on in University that I would not be pursuing anything beyond my Bachelor's, because such things were not for me, and certainly not in Psych. And there are several good reasons my book is not written, but when it is published, it's going to be damn good. (I would just like to say that JR teaches philosophy, and his specific area is absurd to me, because I see the ethical issues surrounding it to be pretty obvious. This is furthermore a pretty fair indicator of how we got along back then, I think.) It seemed to me, then as now, that it did not really make any sense to feel inadequate when compared to people who had things I didn't want. So I stopped. Besides, each of them only yielded two unique hits. I yielded eight, so I win. Okay, but honestly, as our old mentor JW would tell us, "Comparisons are odious." Google hits are not an accurate measure of success (whatever that word means), or much of anything else. For all I know, JR might spend his free time volunteering as a Big Brother, and Google would not know about this great contribution. So you can't really read much into an online search. Unless you want to, because it makes you look good. Here are my unique hits: 1. This site, Trapdoor Spider. Flashpoint for the Cleansing Inferno.
So let's recap these hits:
Frankly, I think Google makes me look better than good; it makes me look great. But the best part is that this list reflects not academic achievement, which was the basis for competition in high school, but achievement in things that I want. Things that are important to me. And that's the point of course. Forget comparisons to people who are
not you. Recognise what you do and have done. Continue to do what you want,
and love what you do. The rest follows.
Publishing hiccups should be once again a thing of the past for Baker's
12.
The ice bridge calls me.
DIDN'T WE MEET?
Genre writers face a sticky problem. This question is likely the most difficult it's ever been, and it's probably going to get even worse: What do you admit? Let's say, for example, you're doing a serial killer thing set in the early 1900s. Let's say your killer would, in that time and place, most likely wear a tall hat, possibly even a cloak or opera cape. Chances are excellent, because your audience will be a genre audience, that many people in this audience will draw comparisons between the way your killer looks and the classic silhouette ascribed to Jack the Ripper. Now, in some cases, this might be quite deliberate on the creator's part; he's going for an homage of a sort. But what if you don't want to be associated with Jack in any way? Your options become somewhat limited; you can keep the look and accept that your audience will likely draw a connection, or you can change the look, perhaps sacrificing authenticity. Now. What if your setting is London, and your hero comes from a long line of police officers? Is there any chance at all that such a character would not know of Jack? be thinking about Jack to some extent? So then, how do you keep this character from mentioning Jack? That's the question: Do you admit there are other stories out there? Do you admit them into your story? In general, superhero movies admit nothing. When our tights-clad hero first leaps onto the scene, everybody acts like this is a Brand New Thing, like The Shadow and The Green Hornet and all the rest of those characters were never created in this universe, nor were any of their descendants. As a viewer, this always seems odd to me, because nothing else in their world seems different from ours, so why should this be the sole change? It seems to be a decision made so the characters can react with wonder and amazement, but I feel it sacrifices logic. The Mask handled this very well. Protagonist acquires the title object, discovers its potential, and announces, "With these powers, I could become... a super-hero!" (Dash included to simulate reading of the line.) In three seconds he tells us he's heard of metahumans, he knows of the clichés, and he's not going to follow them. The other side of that coin is Unbreakable, in which several characters actively try to turn the main character into a superhero, just like in the comics. I said at the outset that this problem was going to get worse, and that's because of how far stories can travel now, and how quickly. If your movie has vampires, for example, I would expect every single one of your viewers to have some idea what a vampire is. Back in Bram Stoker's day, it made sense to have Van Helsing explain the legends to his comrades (and the audience) because they were not Eastern European peasants, and therefore much less likely to know anything about the subject. In the vampire movies I've seen recently, there's usually a section where the rules are explained, because the filmmakers know that the vampires in different stories have different powers and weaknesses, and that the audience will have been exposed to these different versions. Consequently, the audience is going to wonder what any new story's Vampiric Rules are. So you get scenes like James Woods saying, "Forget garlic," in John Carpenter's Vampires, and the debate about the effectiveness of silver in From Dusk Til Dawn. Unlike the situation in most superhero movies, these characters have an inkling what they're up against the moment it appears before them. In my last vampire story, I spent a chapter describing how my hunters took the time to capture their prey and perform tests, so they would know what worked and what didn't. Now let me ask you: If you were reading a vampire novel set in 2002, and the characters had never heard of vampires, wouldn't you find that distracting? The X-Files got around this problem by having one specific character who had researched all of the lore, and so was expected to know what he was facing (and tell the audience). If I'm ever attacked by a flesh-eating animated corpse, expect me to use fire as a deterrent and head shots to try and stop it. You can see why a storyteller wouldn't necessarily want me as a character in his horror story, though. I know what's going on; often the atmosphere will require that nobody really does. But cultural references are everywhere: In so-called Real Life, if I tell you I woke up naked this morning in the middle of a park with no memory of how I got there, you're going to check your calendar to see if there was a full moon (once you've eliminated alcohol as a possibility). If I did this to one of my characters, in a story set in the here and now, I don't think I would be able to build any mystery out of this situation, and if I tried to, my audience would probably be thinking, "Boy, these people are dumb!" To be fair to the characters, though, they might not necessarily be genre fans in the same way as my readers. Your choice as a storyteller seems to be to lose the audience that wants mystery or to lose the audience that wants realism. Usually I find, as an audience member, that what works best is just biting the bullet and somehow making it very clear, very early on, that the writer is aware of other entries in the genre, and this story is not them. As a writer, I'm going to cheat. My next zombie story will be set in
the Victorian Era.
So how do we stop a demon, Professor? Baker's 12, Week 69 The ice bridge calls me.
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