Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote

Warz teh wyteowt?

Yeah.  I kinda got rewrite on my mind this week.

Scrivener and the Whiz
My Other Desktops

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote

...when it comes to writing fiction, the writer's only responsibility is to look for the truth inside his own heart.  it won't always be the reader's truth, or the critic's truth but as long as it's the writer's truth...all is well.
~~from the Afterward in Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars

Speak The Truth by ~Gerkitda on deviantART

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Are You Or Aren't You?

'via Blog this'
Stephen King - Main - Neil Gaiman Interviews Stephen King:

Some things I learned from reading Neil Gaiman's interview of Stephen King:

~King is writing a novel named after me ;)  (Joyland) about a serial killer stalking an amusement park.  About time seeing how his first novel was name after my baby sister who wasn't old enough to read it at the time.  Not that she was a baby just a preteen and Carrie was definitely PG13.

~He lived in a rented trailer house with small children when he wrote and sold Carrie.  (I knew this but being reminded as I sit in my own rented trailer house gives it a bit of poignancy.)

He's only ten years older than me.  (Thus if I'd been on the same track ie had the same dedication I'd have published my first novel in 1987 or at least finished one.)

~Both of his sons are published authors and King thinks his son Joe Hill is a better writer than he.

He and Tabitha met in their University Library. (Ed and I, tho we'd seen each other around campus for years, first started talking to each other in our high school library senior year.)

~They have a large African turtle in their yard that likes to ravish rocks.

OK so some of the tidbits are of more significance than others.

The one that reached out and grabbed me was:

~He writes his stories every day between 8am and Noon.

That's the main reason why he's published novels in the double digits while I haven't finished a single one of the twenty odd I've started.

And the one that gave me shivers and got my head to nodding:

~He has an implicit trust that has yet to fail him that whatever his story needs will be there for him when it's time.  In other words, he doesn't wait until he knows every last thing about the story before plunging into writing it and doesn't let whatever difficulties with story elements that arise during the writing stop him from pushing on nor even keep him awake at night.

He and Gaiman share that trait.  The two of them talk about it as though there is something magical or mystical about it.

That right there is my major issue.  I don't trust the process.  I don't trust my stories to get themselves told.  I don't like the messes that get made when I loose control.  And once a mess is made I either avoid the file entirely or fiddle with surface details endlessly letting the heart and energy of the story die.  Like putting feathers and frills on and ugly child.

I talk a lot about writing my stories.  I write a lot about writing my stories.

It's time to put my paws where my mouth is.  To pause the talk about and apply all those thoughts, words, emotions etc to the stories.  It's time to plant my fingers on the keyboard and I don't mean to blog, chat, social network, email...

It's time be the storyteller again.

Or admit that I'm a fraud.  A storyteller in the sense of that word that rhymes with mire.

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Stephen King on Under the Dome

Stephen King talking about the writing process for Under the Dome.

I mentioned earlier this week how in awe I was of the huge cast of characters in this novel and of King's consummate control over them and the timeline of the story.

My takeaway: You (the author) have to love all your characters if you want your readers to. You can't phone it in.

I'm still quite busy reading and am now possible renting the book as the fine of 20 cents per day unless I get the book in the library drop box early Monday morning. Still almost 400 pages to go. It's doable but not if I dilly-dally.

Here's Stephen King reading from the first chapter:

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Freakin' Me Out

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Why do we humans (and several cats I've known) seem to like to be skeeered?

That's the philosophical thought I've been playing with as I read Under the Dome, Stephen King's latest. I'd like to muse on it here sometime but I don't have time today. I've made it to page 511 which is nearly halfway. Not only is it getting harder and harder to put down, I only have until Monday morning to finish if I'm going to avoid a fine.

Besides the King novel due Thursday, there are several DVD due Thursday as well and several more due next week between Tuesday and Thursday (14 in all). Ed and I just watched one movie and half a season of BBC's Black Books on his folks big screen TV which we get to do when they're out of town. I'm hoping to watch one more movie and maybe two on the big screen before noon tomorrow. But I need to read for an hour or two in Dome first--wear my eyes out on the smallish font and then I'll feel I have the right to spend a couple of hours watching a movie.

But I'm in the same fix with several of the DVD as I am with Dome and three other books--been waiting in queue for months and my turn is nearly over and the queues are six weeks to six months for another turn.

Sigh.

I do seem to like to push deadlines. Is that another aspect of seeking out the freak out?

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King Rules

moar funny pictures

I spent most of today reading Stephen King's Under the Dome.

I probably spent more time reading today than I did the entire read-a-thon Saturday. Yet read barely half the pages because this is far from large print. I read 265 pages of large print for the read-a-thon and 140 today.

I'm going to have to repeat the feat five more times before next Monday morning as the book is due at the library Thursday and I have to have it in the drop box before the library opens Monday to dodge a fine.

As I get deeper and deeper into this story I marvel at every turn of the page over the control Kng has over his huge cast of characters and the steady drumbeat of the unfolding plot. I hope to learn something about how he does that before the end of this story.

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I Only Wish It Were This Easy

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I had to laugh aloud when I saw this one. I occasionally say this about myself but this isn't quiet what I mean. Tho I do remember a time as a pre-teen when I thought putting a book under my pillow helped me do better on the test the next day. Or, in the case of a novel, even finish the story in my dreams.

I'm still recovering from the read-a-thon; or more specifically from the 43hrs I was awake. Still haven't had a good catch-up sleep. Slept a little over six hour Sunday and a little over six again this morning. I probably could have slept more on Sunday but chose to get up and spend the afternoon with my husband on his only day off this week.

Ed had gotten me a pre-paid Visa card to combine with an Amazon.com gift certificate in order to qualify for the free shipping. And the plan was for him to teach me how to use the card and gift certificate and make the orders. He could have done it for me as he has done similar things on other occasions. It would have taken him all of fifteen minutes to registar the pre-paid card, register a new account on Amazon make the selections off my list and apply the gift certificate and pre-paid card at the checkout. But the hope is that the ninety minutes or more he took to walk me through each step may save him dozens of those fiftenn minutes in the future.

The reason it takes me so long to learn a new task on the computer or Net is the combination of me visual impairment with my anxiety disorder. The RP aka Tunnel Vision limits me to seeing only two or three words and/or icons at once. It takes time for me to scan a new web site screen to learn where the relevant text and input forms and etc are. I tend to loose track of the cursor. My tendency to become anxious in new situations makes it hard to concentrate and stay focused on the task. My obsessive need to check and recheck my entries into the forms would try the patience of Buddha himself. And we won't even talk about my mini-panic attacks when I click submit and it comes back with an error message.

So now I have an Amazon.com account. I spent several hours goofing around on Amazon after completing the order. I learned how to create a wishlist. I only managed to put in a few items before I made myself quit so I could get my Sunday post up and go to bed. But what fun!

This morning I got up the first time I woke up because I had DVDs due at the library today and meant to try to watch two before Ed got home from work. I was pleasantly surprized and amazed to find three of the four DVD renewing for me. Only Love In the Time of Cholera did not and I knew for sure that it would not because I knew there was a queue behind me of at least 15 last week. So I started watching it at 11, paused it at noon to listen to Marianne Williamson on Oprah and Friends XM, went back to the movie at 1PM and it finished at a bit after 2. Ed got home as the last of the titles were scrolling off the screen. I had hoped to go to the library myself but I knew Ed would prefer to just get it done so he could kick back for the rest of the day. So I didn't make him wait for me to shower and etc. an inescapable necessity given that I'd spent most of the noon hour on the mini-tramp.

Since I didn't have to go out, I put off the shower since I hoped to get back on the mini-tramp again this evening. My time on it at noon wasn't an aerobic workout just a gentle limbering and balance training. After dinner I put in another movie and got on the tramp as it started. This time it was Akeelah and the Bee. I surprised myself by staying on the tramp for 72 minutes. Mostly it was still the gentle swaying and flexing etc but everytime the soundtrack went into music with a faster beat I began to move with it and sustain the faster pace for as long as the soundtrack did.

This was huge improvement for a week ago yesterday--the day Ed bought and assembled it for me. The first two days I could only manage three to five minutes at a time. I made up for the short intervals by getting on frequently those two days. The Tuesday through Thursday I had worked up to fifteen to twenty minutes at a time and did two sessions per day. On Friday afternoon I managed my first over thirty minute session but then on Friday evening I stepped on the rim as I was mounting and the tramp tilted and threw me off. Though I got back on for short sessions several times that evening, I had bruised my confidence.

The tramp was a major factor in helping me thrive thoughout the 24 hours of the Read-a-thon Saturday in spite of having managed to set myself up for failure by not sleeping the night before. I got on it so many times during those 24 hours I lost count. I was flagging seriously around 8PM Saturday and did a 45 minute workout with over fifteen minutes being aerobic. I used the time to contemplate the story I'd just read and prepare to write my comentary on it. I don't know how much credit to give the tramp and how much the energy drink I was sipping away at during and after that stint on it but I didn't flag again before 5AM. In fact I didn't get sleepy until after 6AM.

One of the books I ordered on Amazon yesterday was The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I had actually gotten in queue for it at the library the day before Oprah announced it as the next Book Club selection because I'd stumbled on a blog that was speculating about it and it was one of several favored as highly likely to be IT. I read a couple of reviews about it and decided I wanted it whether it was Oprah's selection or not. So I went to order it and found myself 45th in line for about fifteen copies. By the next evening there were about forty more behind me. So that week I began to plan to spend an Amazon gift certificate I'd gotten for reviewing a writer's community site here on that book. When checking it out at Amazon that week though I discovered that if I added another five dollars to the amount of the gift certificate I could have an extra book or two instead of paying for shipping. So I waited to place my order until Ed could swing the pre-paid card.

Now here is a bit of irony. One of the books Ed brought back from the library today was...... drumrollllllll.....

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

Now I have to decide whether to go ahead and start it while I'm waiting for my copy to arrive. Or let it go back so the next in line can have their turn. The latter seems the most gracious choice. Considering that there is less than two week before NaNo starts and I still have so much prep still to do if I want the first week of NaNo to be all about writing the story(s), then my choice is obvious. And I also hung onto a book novel that was due today that I'm in the middle of--the one I set aside Saturday morning in order to devote the read-a-thon to short stories as planned. So you could say I am renting that book for twenty cents a day and it could take me three to five days to finish it. Another good reason to let The Story of Edgar Sawtelle go.

Ed also brought back four more DVDs we'd been in queue for at the library. One of them is the six hour Stephen King miniseries, The Storm of the Century. One is The Golden Compass and another is The Aviator.

Choices. Choice. Choices.

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So Many Pages, So Little Time

Image courtesy of Anna Toss.

Must I really set aside a Stephen King novel and try to come up with something non-boring to post about? Well I suppose I must if I don't want to break my daily post string. I just realized that this post marks one full year of posting without missing a day and because this was a leap year and February 29 is behind us that means this is the 366th straight post. And I noticed while passing through the Blogger Dashboard that tomorrow will be my 700th post since debuting Joystory in November 2004.

I began daily posting as compensation and consolation for loosing access to the library last April after our county system closed its doors indefinitely for lack of funding on Friday, April 6. I had held onto one book, a novel I hadn't quite finished, over the weekend and while walking it over to the library on Monday morning, I contemplated the idea of committing to daily posts.

I finally started Duma Key late yesterday even though, as I mentioned the other day, I needed to start it by Sunday evening to have any hope of finishing it in time to return it to the library when it is due Thursday. I had hoped to devote Sunday to reading it but woke with a headache. Then Monday I woke up with an earache that was like having a q tip jammed inside it with some sadist tweaking it every time I moved my jaw. This was accompanied by dizziness that was exacerbated by moving my eyeballs. When this abated enough to allow for reading in the late afternoon, I needed to prepare for the A New Earth webinar at six. I was already a week behind as I had been unable to finish last week's chapter before class and still hadn't. I finished chapter five and then skimmed chapter six so I am still behind.

I've got a slew of books coming due on Thursday which I won't be finished with. Not that I expected to have finished with all of them but I had hoped to make a better showing. This vicious virus has had me in its grip for nearly two weeks and for most of that time, all I could do was fantasize about reading.

I haven't been to the library for almost three weeks! Yesterday Ed went in order to pick up the books that I'd ordered. There were eleven items waiting for me--one DVD and ten books. I haven't unpacked the bag yet.

Well, I'm heading back to Duma Key...

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Sunday Serenity #50

Today, Saturday, was a pretty good day though I slept most of it away. But that is what made it good. The cough relented enough to allow it. I haven't had much good sleep since this thing started over ten days ago. Before the cough set in around the middle of this week, it was fever dreams and breathing issues. Does this sound like I'm leading up to an ode to sleep for my Sunday Serenity post? Well no, I've got my hopes up that I will feel up to reading by tomorrow so I have my sights set on starting Duma Key finally. If I don't start it by Sunday evening, I might as well not start it at all since it is due Thursday and it is just over 600 pages.

I suppose it sounds a bit oxymoronic to link a Stephen King story to either Sunday or serenity. But then I don't believe that serenity is about suppressing the negative emotions but rather about learning to witness them rise up in your consciousness without allowing them to possess your consciousness or dictate your behavior. Story is a powerful method for accessing these emotions--the dark places in your psyche--in safe mode.

And it sounds from the cover description that Duma Key is a meditation on that very concept though the access node is painting rather than story. But then I see painting and other artistic endeavors as a form of story presentation. I'm biased that way. I see story everywhere. I'm convinced human consciousness was created for and by story--that story is the DNA of our psyche.


Here is Stephen King talking about Duma Key

Here is a trailer for Duma Key


Book Description:

No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through...

A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else.

"Edgar, does anything make you happy?"

"I used to sketch."

"Take it up again. You need hedges... hedges against the night."

Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.

The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural -- Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.

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And as an added bonus: Here is Stephen King handing out advice to young people considering a career in writing.

Join us for a moment of serenity.

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