C. L. Norman

My four kids will be back in school tomorrow . . . all day long. My oldest is going into high school. Yes, I am now the mother of a freshman. Can you believe it? I know I am having a hard time with that idea. In fact, it is making me feel my years and I know I don’t really have all that many of them. 

My youngest is heading into first grade. He is so very excited about it too. He keeps telling me, with an exaggerated pout on his face, “I want to go to school today.”  What are the chances this attitude will last the month?

My middle two kids are treating it all as just another day in the life of a kid. They are busy reading the Warriors books to each other and acting out scenes from the books. Being 8 and 12 must be so easy.

Actually I have been secretly wishing I could slip on my black cloak, (ok it is just a big piece of shiny black cloth I pin around my neck) and grab my wooden longsword and slip out to the dunes to play a little myself. The stories and characters generated from the play would be entertaining and inspiring. And maybe I would loosen up enough to just write instead of judging every little word I submit to my word processor.

On the other hand, with my kids gone all day and the week off from work, I will have 4 days to really work on my writing.

Maybe I will slip that cloak on while I am alone in the house at the computer. Couldn’t hurt.

        

My laptop monitor has given up the ghost. There is no life left in it and so I am no longer mobile. Also my laptop is iffy under the best of circumstances.

So my writing has been slowed down significantly. I am trying to switch back to handwriting, at least my first draft. Personal issues on top of technical issues kept me from it last week. I am determined to change that this week.

I will let you know how it goes. How is your writing coming along?

        

So I discovered Supernatural finally. Just a few days ago when my computer went down I ordered an episode on my iPhone and immediately started kicking myself for not watching it earlier. I had good reasons at the time. Like I had enough shows I was following, another show in the same time slot, worried that picking it up after season one would just leave me dazed and confused. None of those reasons are sounding good enough now.

The two brothers in this show are fun and interesting to watch. I look at them and I just want to tear their characters apart and look at them again from the inside out, analyzing everything about them that makes them so much more than the everyday monster hunters.

Dean is the resident rogue of the show. He has the quips and the smart alecky attitude and Jensen Ackles has always appeared to have a bit of the imp in him in every role I have seen him in and it makes him one of my favorites. Sam though is the rebel. Dean listens to no one but his dad and Sam listens to everyone but his dad (keeping in mind I am only half way through season one at the time of this entry). Sam is the rebel or the black sheep of the family and it is neat to see as he would be considered the “good” son from those outside the family group.

This show would be interesting enough watching two ordinary folks fighting the unusual in a semi-ordinary world. But the two characters here have been crafted so wonderfully that I enjoyed learning more about them than about the world they live in. They have all these built in conflicts or layers that make them wonderfully rich, like a triple layer chocolate cherry cake. A person can just dig in and enjoy.

First, they are brothers. Brothers and sisters for that matter have very different kinds of relationships. There is sibling rivalry and sibling protection and love. Second, one witnessed and remembers his mother’s death and the other does not. One stayed home and was the dutiful son and learned all his dad had to teach him while the other left to experience a different kind of life. All of these layers are introduced in the first 15 minutes of the first episode.

If I can learn to create even half of these subtle layers and shadings in my characters I will count myself lucky.

What do you think of these characters?

        

I picked up a copy of Gordath Wood by Patrice Sarath the other day. Two things drew me to it.

One, it was a first book by a new author. As one day I hope to have a first book on the shelf, I like to look at other recent releases by new authors to see what is being published these days. I don’t necessarily compare my writing with theirs but I do see what kinds of plots and characters these authors use. Then I think about my plots and the like and tell myself that they are just as interesting and if I would just finish writing the darn things, I would have a shot at seeing my book on the shelf.

Second, it is a book that involves people from our world stumbling across a passage into a magical world. I love these stories. Ever since I was a child and read stories about finding fairies in the backyard or watched Wizard of Oz, I have loved the idea that if I am patient and lucky enough, one day I could peak into one of those worlds. I think that is a lot of what set me to writing in the first place. Maybe I couldn’t physically visit a magical world, but in my mind and heart I could live there. It is a wonderful thing.

Other books that lose the protagonist in the magical include:

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol: I have read the book and seen at least three different movie versions of this story and I am still fascinated by the young girl who falls down the rabbit hole.

The Secret Country by Pamela Dean: A group of kids playing under the hedges in their yard end up in a land of wizards and royalty. Very fun and it has been too long since I read it. Note to self: reread The Secret Country.

The Barbed Coil by J. V. Jones: A woman is sucked into the fantasy world by a ring and her adventures involve the illumination of manuscripts, like in medieval times.

I am sure there are others that I have forgotten over the years but you see what I mean. Now back to Gordath Wood. I haven’t finished it yet but already it is a bit different than the previous ones. Different in a way that makes it fresh. The “passage” between worlds is the main problem of the book. I don’t want to spoil it but more than one person goes through the passage and some are exploiting it. Most of the previous stories involve the main character being trapped in a world not their own and having to deal with that worlds problems before they can make it home again. I like how this freshens up the old story.

And now back to my book. Shhh.

        

I am finicky about those pesky endings. If the ending isn’t nearly perfect, it ruins the whole story for me.

I am a sucker for a happy ending. Especially one in which the girl gets her man or vice versa and everyone lives happily ever after. Or at least until the sequel.

I have found that some books very carefully craft the romance subplot so at the end when the hero and heroine get together it is a wonderful moment in the story. Others that I have read don’t seed the romantic relationship well enough through the story and when they get to the end they randomly pair up everybody. Like the end of The Pirate Movie, “You and you, and you and you…” etc. I prefer a romance to be a fully realized subplot and not an afterthought.

Years ago I read a book by one of my favorite authors which should have ended fifty pages earlier than it did. The book was about 200 pages long and the day was saved and the problem solved by page 150 but instead of ending it, the book continued on for another 50 pages in a grand celebration of their victory over their problems.  I didn’t need to read about the characters patting themselves on the back for that length of time and almost didn’t finish the book because of the lack of tension or action.

Another ending I am disatisfied with is the one for The Lord of the Rings. You can join the line right behind my husband in calling me a “blasphemer” for not liking The Lord of the Rings. And the problem for me was the ending. If the ending drives me crazy, it ruins the whole story for me. Seeing Frodo whine and wish for his return to home, both his physical home and “normalcy,” was part of Frodo’s appeal. He was thrust into events for which he was unprepared but he had to participate in for any hope to return to home. However at the end, after just a few months home, he leaves again. This time for a more permanent destination. If he left again to travel the lands and see his friends from the fellowship, I could see that. The events just past did change him. But he leaves everything and everyone he knows behind and I just can’t reconcile that with his character. And so the books are ruined for me.

The movie Titanic also had one of those endings that just barely saves itself from being ruined for me. I expected both Jack and Rose to either both die or both live. Since the story was set up as a very long flashback, of course one of them had to survive. And really it doesn’t make sense that both would survive that tragedy but as I said before, I am a sucker for a happy ending and I wanted Jack and Rose to end up together, alive or dead. The dream sequence at the end of the movie puts the two together again and just barely saves it for me.

What are your favorite endings? and what endings bother you?

        

I know I just wrote about putting the fun back into writing. This post will seem contradictory. I have been trying to trick my mind into thinking of writing as another job. Not very successfully so far.

I want to or maybe need to write more regularly and to stop putting it off for excuses which don’t even sound good in my mind. I start feeling guilty for avoiding writing. Also I am just lazy enough that because writing is not easy all the time I put it off to avoid “working” at it.

Another reason I am trying to think of writing as a job is that when I am at work or doing a job for a friend, I work hard and much more efficiently. I finish what I start and I do my best. I want to feel that when I write. When I am working on a story. When I am managing my day and the time I devote to different tasks.

I am not yet published or paid for my writing. I do not expect to ever be paid enough to quit my job but I do want to start treating it like a second part time job. A job I enjoy and look forward to. And devote fifteen to twenty hours a week to.

        

Last night I finished reading Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy. And I just have to say. Wow.

First, I am starry eyed enough that when I find out famous people share my birthplace I immediately think they are cooler. And Mr. Card was born the same place as me and that is just plain cool.

Second, the book is written in a very friendly, conversational style that I found very engaging and at the same time stimulating to the creative center of my brain. The tone is exactly how I would want to receive answers to my questions about writing from professional authors if I ever get over my extreme shyness so I could ask them. This book answered a lot of those questions. And made me think of worldbuilding and writing in new ways.

When I am worldbuilding or writing, I make the mistake Mr. Card mentions in that I take my first “great idea” and then just start writing. He suggests taking that idea and pushing and questioning at it until it becomes richer and has more depth. It is such a simple thing and yet one I had overlooked. 

My current story idea is about a con artist fortune teller who doesn’t believe in omens or prophecy and then she has a vision of the future. What does she do? My previous story idea had world shaping events based on the Time of Troubles with the False Dmitrys with false rulers and civil war. Mr. Card says to take those ideas and intersect them. The False Dmitry idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for over 10 years but the fortuneteller has only lived there for a couple months. I see now that I need to work with both those ideas for my current project.

Also, another piece of advice from Mr. Card is that I ask “why?” Why does my con artist do what she does. I had some sort of vague idea that she had a bad family life and that is why she left home and doesn’t want to form any long term relationships because they never work out.  Clearly, I need to push and explore this further.  I need to keep asking why.