Working on a story can feel a lot like living in two worlds.  Whether I'm taking a (responsibly socially-distanced) walk, or doing chores around the house, my mind inevitably wanders to my characters.  I think about their conversations & their backstories, their quirks & their next steps.  Sometimes that comes back to bite me, because I get a brilliant idea when I'm driving on the freeway with no reasonable means of stopping to write it down.  But lately that hasn't been a problem because I'm always near my laptop--can't imagine why.
      In my current project, the story takes place in a small town in southwest Oregon (totally fictional location, & no, it's not Gravity Falls).  The town is very haunted, with ghost hunting being one of the biggest tourism draws.  So I've interjected the first five chapters of the manuscript with exerts from the town's official ghost tour!  I love a good ghost tour, & since I can't go on one right now this has been a lot of fun to write--not just coming up with the spooky stories, but then putting them in the voice of a tour guide.  It makes a nice break from my usual style & it's a good exercise for my craft.  Anyway, as an intermission from my recipe adventures, here is the first draft of one such ghost story. 
Enjoy!

This is the Walker-Ames House, one of the most haunted buildings in the most haunted town in Washington State, Port Gamble. I went on their ghost tour a few years back with my best friend & we got to go in--at night!  And...nothing happened.  But the house itself was definitely the visual inspiration for the story below.

      I woke up Friday morning wanting to write.  That hasn't happened for...um...how long has it been since my last blog post?
      Ok, that's a mild exaggeration.  There have actually been several days in the last few months where I have felt an inclination to work on my stories.  And a few times I gave into said inclination for 20 or 30 minutes.  But that's about as far as I've gotten because - in the words of my co-workers - I got Life'd.
      What made Friday unique was that I didn't just feel like, "Writing could be fun," I felt like, "I NEED TO WRITE!"  And guess what?  No time.  I had to work for 5 hours (on my day off), then I cooked for 4 hours, then I co-hosted a Cinco de Mayo party for another 4 hours.  I have zero complaints about how the day ended because it involved margaritas.  Mixed Citrus Jalapeño Margaritas, to be exact!  But all the same, there was no time to write.
      And I. Am. Fed. Up.
      Writing is my biggest passion.  Honestly, it's bigger than cooking, it's just that finding time to cook is easier, because I eat every day.*  Life is too damn short not to pursue one's passions.  So time to write will be found, come hell or Gods Damned high water!
      I've joined a new Writer's Group, which meets every other week.  I'm hoping that will help keep me accountable.  Besides, the weather is getting sunnier & inspiration is peeking out from so many corners!  There are hikes to enjoy, Farmers' Markets to peruse, & friends to host, all of which help get my creative juices flowing.  I'm going to do my damnedest to get back into regular blogging as well.  And to thank you for continuing to read (despite a few months of absence, here is that recipe I promised.  Drink responsibly, please, & Feliz Cinco de Mayo.

Z.D.'s Mixed Citrus Jalapeño Margaritas
makes 1 large pitcher

Ingredients: 
24 oz. Tequila Blanco
11 oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
9 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 - 4 oz. Mixed Citrus Vanilla Syrup**
1 jalapeño pepper, halved lengthwise
extra lime wedges, jalapeno slices, kosher salt, & crushed ice for serving

Directions: 
 - Mix tequila, juices, & syrup in a large pitcher until thoroughly combined.  Drop in the jalapeño, cover with plastic wrap, & chill 30 minutes to 2 hours.  DO NOT leave the jalapeño in there longer than that, it will develop too harsh of a flavor!

 - To serve, use a lime wedge to wet the lip of a margarita or highball glass.  Let sit for 1 minute, then dip rim into a shallow saucer of kosher salt.  Set aside for 10 minutes to let the salt adhere.  Fill glass with crushed ice, then pour margarita mixture over.  Serve with lime wedge on the side if so desired.

Not my photo, but this is basically what it looks like.  I went with a little less salt than that.

*Four times, usually.

**Here's the twist: this is the leftover syrup from making this recipe for Mixed Citrus Marmalade from Bon Appetit magazine.  Why the heck do I have it?  Because I made the marmalade as part of my Easter dessert.  Is it a pain in the ass?  Yes.  Is it so absurdly delicious that you'll make it again even though it is a pain in the ass?  Yes.

      A common piece of advice among writers is to "start a story in the middle."  The idea is that tales often don't get interesting until a certain amount of tension builds, or problems unfold.  By starting a story in the middle, the characters have their motivations firmly in place, and the reader gets to find out not only what happens next, but what has already happened.  This is fresh on my mind after just watching the final performance of Seattle Opera's "La Traviata," Verdi's famous tragedy.*  I'd never seen it before, nor was I familiar with the story, although in many ways it's a classic tale.

I wish I had seen it earlier so I could have recommended it to more people!!!

      Here's a summary: the most popular young courtesan in Paris** is wooed by an awkward, bookish young man.  She is dying from a wasting disease, & he wants to take her away from her life of vice.  Against all her instincts, she falls for him.  For a time they are happy together in the French countryside.  But then the young man's father arrives & begs the courtesan to leave his son & not tarnish the family name.  Grieved, but determined to do the right thing, she abandons her lover & returns to Paris, where she persuades everyone - even him - that she was only toying with his affections.  He confronts her in a rage before leaving to travel abroad with his family.  Months later, she is dying alone, when her lover returns.  His father has told him of her sacrifice, & he is determined they shall live happily together once more.  But alas it is too late: although her heart is filled with joy she dies in his arms.
      The opera opens right where my summary began: at a party, where the Parisian elite are teasing this bookworm by pushing him towards his celebrity crush.  We know nothing of the courtesan's past except that she must be good at what she does to be so popular.  As the opera goes on, we learn more of her lover's past than of hers.  But the story doesn't need anything more: the themes of the tragedy (and the gorgeous music) speak for themselves.
      Now a novel doesn't have the benefit of music or actors to fill out the blanks.  The author must find ways to do this on their own.  But more than that, the author has to figure out something more subtle: just where the heck is the "middle," anyway?
      Some stories seem like they're starting at the beginning, & it's not until later the reader realizes how they are really in the middle of something--something big.  While not an expert on the genre, it seems to me this is how pretty much every mystery goes.  Consider the Sherlock Holmes mysteries; sure, it's the beginning of the adventure for the famous detective, but the mystery itself may have been gathering momentum for years.

"Once upon a time" could mean a lot of things, depending on the timeline in question.

      When I tried to think of stories that actually begin at the beginning, the only thing that came to mind was fairy tales.  You don't start by saying a girl in a red hood knocks on her grandmother's door, & then find out she met the wolf en route after she's been eaten.  But then again, the story starts with Little Red going to visit her sick granny.  Already we have a character with a history so strong her identity is synonymous with it.  Where do stories really begin, anyway?  If they're character based, would the beginning be birth?  But then what about the family of origin?  Or the history of the location where it all takes place?
      While I'm certain there are plenty of authors, professors, editors, & other people far more experienced & successful than I who give a concise definition of what it means to "start a story in the middle," I'm starting to think that for me it really means knowing the story myself.  As the author, I need to know what happened to set up the events at the opening of my tale.  After all, a good novel is rarely one story: it's usually several interwoven.  "Pride & Prejudice" may seem to start at the beginning - when Elizabeth first meets Mr. Darcy - but later we learn the story of Mr. Darcy's pride & reserve, & the scandal that threatened his family & comes to threaten hers.
      Maybe I'm getting too philosophical here, but thinking about where a story starts seems a lot of like trying to figure out when a day begins.  Midnight?  When the sun breaches or the horizon?  Or pulls free of it?  When your alarm goes off?  When your coffee kicks in?  Maybe it's not so much about starting the story in the middle, as it is about the writer creating a sense of real time continuum.  After all, everyone wants to believe their own next adventure could start any moment!



*It's so famous, that even if you're not an opera fan you're probably familiar with at least one tune.

**Of course it has to be Paris, even though the opera is in Italian.

      I was perusing the newspapers online today, and found this excellent article from the New York Times explaining just what the heck is going on with the Electoral College.  More than any other time in my life - including the tension-strapped presidential election of 2000 - I hear people talking about the Electoral College this year.  Most of them are like me: they have a vague recollection of learning about it in high school, none of which made sense because they were either a) experiencing panic triggered by the very word "college," or b) snickering about the nonsensical pun "erect-oral college," depending on their maturity level on that given day.

I think I still have my old U.S. Gov text book around somewhere....

      Although I am increasingly politically active these days,* my first reaction to this article was actually: "Wow, that's complicated. You can't make this stuff up."
      Then I realized: yeah you can.  People do it all the time.  Any mature, imaginary world has a made-up system of government, including mine.
      Plenty of good novels never bother going into politics in any way, shape, or fashion.  But many others - from spy thrillers to science fiction epics - touch on it with a certain level of confidence.  The more unique the world, the more essential a well-planned system of government, even if it's never fully explained.  The Harry Potter books are a great example.  Then you get Game of Thrones, which is entirely based around the complex intricacies of politics and government.  Even the Chronicles of Narnia rely on a hefty, if simplistic concept.
      Pondering this leads me inevitably to Star Wars.**  I probably saw the original Star Wars trilogy as a toddler, when "Return of the Jedi" came out.  Which means I was enjoying the heck out of it long before I could grasp a lot of what was going on.  In fact - and it embarrasses me to admit this - it wasn't until Episode One that I actually understood all the political nuances of the original trilogy.  (It also embarrasses me that I saw Episode One at all, but how could we have known what we were in for!?!)  I remember thinking, "Oh, I get it now, there's a senate!  And the empire wanted it gone!  And THAT's how there can be a princess who's not related to the emperor!"
      Don't judge me.  Toddlers get interesting ideas and can hold on to them for a really, really long time.

Although frankly I don't have high hopes for the government when the senate floor literally looks like particles being sucked down a drain.

      In my early attempts at fantasy writing, I went for very basic monarchies as governments.  They were character driven, and I didn't have to think too hard about how they worked.  I'd like to say I've come far since then, but the truth is I still tend to lean towards simplistic governments.  When I do got for something more politically complex, I usually pull a George R.R. Martin and base them on history (although not nearly as intricately as he).  This is a challenge for me, to be honest.  I don't have a very scheming mind.  I suck at chess.  But if I have a mature story that calls for any reference to the government of my worlds, I try to have an outline, because I need to know what the heck is going on even if it never gets fully explained to the reader.
      I'd love to know what other writers - and readers - think about this.  When your story takes place in an imaginary place, do you think the politics are important?  Do they add to a story, or detract?  And how the heck do you keep them straight?



*Gettin' mah social justice on!  Woot!

**Incidentally, if you haven't seen Rogue One yet, go see it!  But re-watch the original Star Wars movie first; unless you have it memorized like me, you'll be glad of the refresher to get all the awesome bits and references.

      This post is about soup.  It contains a relatively simple and delicious recipe.  I just thought I'd say that up front, in case you don't have the wherewithall to get through the preamble.  

Soup, glorious soup!

      The events of November 8th have definitely left an impact on me.  Aside from sending some of my clients into crisis (I'm a psychologist, remember?), it's emboldened some assholes* in my city to be more visible in their hate mongering.  I've been stepping up my game as an activist in response.  That means more time writing about social justice, attending meetings, and reaching out.  It also means less time doing creative writing, or working on this blog.  *sigh*
      The good news is that my most recent writing project stalled after reaching 41,474 words.  That's in four weeks of writing.  I'm damn proud of myself.  If you're a serious writer, you know that kind of productivity is a gift--and a rush to boot.  As I adjust to my new obligations, I hope to find time to get back to it soon.
      In the meantime, there is one joy that life thrusts upon me daily, no matter what else is going on in the world: food!  We all need it.  Obtaining a meal can be a chore, it can be a side-effort, or it can be an opportunity for self-care and celebration.**  The weather is cold and some of us are in need of a little comfort, so the obvious answer?  Soup.
      Or pie.  But today's recipe is soup.
      This is a recipe inspired by a Majorcan vegetarian bread stew.  What the heck is a bread stew, you ask?  It's a soup finished with slices of bread on top, adding thickness and heartiness.  Lovely, but not always practical.  So here's my adaptation (I apologize there are no pictures, but every step looks pretty much as you might imagine, so no surprises):

Z.D.'s Vegetable Soup with a Spanish Flair

Ingredients:
1 Tbs olive oil
      You can substitute turkey bacon if you want, but then double the amount of olive oil and don't pour any off.  You can also omit the meat entirely and make this a vegetarian dish.  Finally, if you  like vegetable soup - or even if you just tolerate it - I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this Winter Vegetable Soup by Alton Brown.  It takes all afternoon to make, but holy crow, you will be flabbergasted that a vegetable soup can taste this good.



      Eat well.  Live well.  Help others to eat and live well, too.



*I will not use a softer word, because this one isn't strong enough.

**Oh yeah, don't we have a holiday coming up that has a lot to do with food?

      You may recall that I'm working on turning one of my manuscripts into a trilogy.  Because apparently I have a passion for re-arranging the deck chairs on sinking ships.  And I'm actually getting to the point where I'm not looking forward to sitting down and working on it every morning, because I'm stuck.
      I wouldn't say I have writer's block, exactly; when I find a spot to elaborate with another paragraph, or a scene I want to change just a touch, my fingers fly over the keyboard.  Words I got.  What I'm lacking is the foresight to figure out exactly what my character would do in this certain situation.
      Allow me to explain: turning my gas-lamp fantasy into a trilogy means I get to make it longer (fun)!  Specifically, I've got room to add another 30,000 words to the second volume.  Which means I get to add in a few little sub-plots, and flesh out some very minor characters so they're no longer just passing scenery.  It also means that now I get to tell the tale of what happened to one of my main characters between London and Cairo.*  Which should be interesting, because he's a character who does a lot of growing in this series.

The Suez Canal has a fascinating history.  I like taking things that have fascinating history in the real world and working them into fictional stories!

      But now my dilemma: I'm not exactly sure what he would do.
      Usually when I'm stuck in a situation like this, I walk around my house doing minor chores and talk to myself out loud.  I reason out what I know about the character's personality, and ply a few "what if" situations.  Almost invariably, within a 20 minutes or less, I have my answer.  It just clicks.  What's more, I get a little thrill of excitement and motivation as scenes appear inside my head, like watching a movie, and I can hardly wait to start transcribing the vision.**
      This time, nothing's clicking.  I can think of a number of scenarios, and it's not hard to figure out what my character would do, but none of them feels right.  And I am not - NOT - putting this much gods-damned effort into this bloody story just to wank out a sub-par sub-plot.

*snort*  Hemingway...what did he know about writing?  Bah!

      So...what do I do?  Write down a draft of all three possibilities, and see if one of them takes?  Table it and come back to it later?  Pick one and run with it?  Keep talking to myself until I come up with something better or the neighbors call the cops???  ARRGH!!!
     Ok, what would you do?



*Or rather, the equivalents thereof in my fictional universe.

**This is why I carry a little pocket chapbook wherever I go, so that I can stop and jot this stuff down if I'm not near my laptop.  Far too many excellent ideas have been lost by people not taking the time to write them down.  I've even pulled over on the freeway once or twice to do this....

      Just in case you've been wondering where I'm at in the grand scheme of writing things, I've actually been doing a lot.  My new daily routine allows for at least a solid hour of writing every morning, while I enjoy my breakfast.  The situation is ideal for me: wake up, make tasty food, eat part while checking email and reading my daily webcomics, and then finish up my tea while working on stories.  I honestly love my mornings.  How many people can say that?

My idea of heaven is to spend a week at a gourmet bed & breakfast with a view of the ocean, and be able to spend my days writing and walking, well-fed in body and soul

      As for WHAT I'm writing...well...that's a different matter.
      Once upon a time, I wrote a gas lamp fantasy manuscript about two demons trying to be human, two women trying to be themselves, a curse, and a conspiracy to bring hell on earth.  I *loved* writing this story.  And it was ridiculously long.  Like, 150k words long.  No way any editor in their right mind would accept a manuscript like that from an unproven author.
      So I did the intelligent thing and divided it into two books.  Now I had two manuscripts, each of the perfect length, and honestly I thought they were both pretty good.  I got some good feedback from beta readers, trimmed some parts, lengthened others, and firmed up the dialogue a bit.  And last year I submitted queries to several different agents.
      I got a few nibbles, but no bites--which isn't a big surprise.  Had logic prevailed, I would have shelved the manuscript for the time being and gone on to work on other projects (how many have I got in the works now? Seven?  Eight?).  But I have this problem: I think this story is the best work I have ever done.  I think the plot, the characters, the world, the language, all of it is seriously solid.  I read other published novels that are in the same genre and I think, "But my story is BETTER than this one!  How'd this get published, and not mine!?"*
      I'm biased, of course.  Not only because it's my work, but because I know it so well I can't be objective anymore.  It's too familiar, so I can't tell where there are holes in the plot, or if important scenes are understated or over-dramatic.  Of course I strive to be thoughtful and intelligent in my approach, but that's not a perfect guide.  In fact, there are times I suspect I'm downright wrong.  Such as my latest idea.
      "Clearly," I thought, "the problem is that the story needs to be a TRILOGY!!!"
      Just writing this makes me want to smack myself on the forehead.

If you ever catch my trying to make this into 4 books, please, please stop me.

      So yeah.  I've spent the last couple months dividing my two novels into three, re-arranging some of the scenes, adding back in some deleted material, and adding new bits to try and create compelling individual story arcs.  Believe me, I am in no way entirely convinced this is a smart move.  But there was no way to know until I'd done it, and once I started, I'm committed.
      I just finished the first draft of book one.  Now I get to tackle book two.  That's going to involve a lot of scene re-arranging.  *sigh*  My plan is to finish a first draft of the trilogy, and then ignore it for a few months while I work on something else.  Then hopefully come back to it with semi-fresh eyes.  And maybe shell out the bucks for a professional editor, because at this point, all my dear, dear friends who volunteer as beta-readers have already gone through at least one version of this thing.
     This is why I write first thing in the morning: creativity flows best before I actually let myself think.


*Not to misconstrue my ego, it should be noted that this is not my reaction to most novels.  Most novels I read with mingled joy, envy, and despair, thinking: "This is so freaking awesome!  I wish I could write like this!  But I don't think I'll ever be able to write like this!  Therefore I will go eat more chocolate, and read the next chapter, instead of doing the dishes!"

      Today, Camela and I went to go see the new Tarzan movie.  We both knew it wasn't going to be Oscar worthy, and that it would probably be guilty of several White-Male-as-Hero tropes.  But let's be perfectly honest: we went to go watch it for the scenery.  The lovely, lovely Scandinavian scenery.  And the movie delivered.

      But, first Camela and I had to resign ourselves to the inevitable damsel-in-distress plot.  Not that there isn't a place for such stories, it's just...well...there's a LOT of them.  This Tarzan wasn't as bad as it could have been; Jane came across as a competent and intelligent woman, with a great deal of courage.  But she was captured by the greedy villain (I'm sorry if this is a spoiler, but really, did you expect anything else?), and she did depend on him to save her.  It is - with ironic apologies to Disney - a tale as old as time.
      There are some classic tales in which a male is rescued by a female.  The two with which I am most familiar would be the old Scottish ballad of Tam Lin, and the immortal Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of The Snow Queen.  As a child, I didn't care for either one of them, because they didn't seem romantic enough.  Now I love them, for the way they are written and the stories they tell.  My ideas about romance have changed as I have matured.  But I wish I had been exposed to a broader range of it as a child.*

A gorgeous illustration of the Ballad of Tam Lin by the talented artist Wylie Beckert.  There is a lot of symbolism in this tale, and how Janet holds on through Tam Lin's many transformations.

      You may have read some of my previous blog entries where I discuss this trick for writers to test their stories for "isms": mentally swap the genders/ethnicities/sexual orientations of their characters, and see how the story changes.  Sometimes we intentionally make our characters minorities to further a deeper meaning in our tales.  Sometimes, however, we're just lazy.  This is a good way to keep us accountable.
      So it's interesting to re-cast the movie I just watched with the genders swapped.  Consider: a badass wild girl falls for a scholarly boy, rescues him from danger over and over, and is finally persuaded to return to civilization.  Now her beloved is abducted as a way to trap her, and she kicks major ass (losing clothing along the way) across half a continent to get him back.**

Ok, that sounded absurd in my head, but now that I've written it out, I'm going, "Holy crap!  I would LOVE to read that!"

      Got your head wrapped around that one?  Right, now have it take place with the heroine and her love object as African, saving a continent of tribal white people.  Now add in the black female aristocratic villain.
      Now try keeping Tarzan a male, and turn Jane into John.
      It's a whole new story, right?  And one which evokes different feelings--and may appeal to a different audience.  Which tells us a lot about what we expect from the stories of real life.

And now, just for shits and giggles, you can take this pointless online quiz to figure out your Amazon Warrior Name.  I'd like to say that mine was bad-ass, but it actually meant "Shaggy Goat Skin."  I hope you have better luck than I.



*Not that there was much of a range to expose me to.  Yes that sentence is grammatically incorrect, but my point stands.

**For a split second, I thought I had just described the plot to Princess Mononoke, but then I realized I hadn't.  The guy ends up saving everybody in end, really.  Although it's still a bloody fabulous movie.

      As I've previously related, I am in the process of moving.  And that process just got longer, because we just learned that rather than joining me next month, my spouse will not be joining me for another year.  Because medical professions can be really, really unreasonable sometimes.*
      That means my hectic life just became my even more hectic and waaaaaay more unpredictable life for awhile.  And of course, it's the writing that suffers.  How much so?  It took me a solid week to write 5 pages.  Double spaced.  With zero corrections, because I don't have time.
      So priority #1 in the Maintaining My Sanity department will be working out a daily schedule/strategy for getting in more writing.  Fortunately, I have been finding time for cooking, especially with all the spring holidays.  But since none of the recipes were my own I can't share them here.  I will instead share with you a picture of the lemons we used to make our dessert...

The one on the left is a Meyer lemon, the best thing to happen to citrus since Satsumas.  The one on the right is a Ponderosa lemon, which is the weirdest thing to happen to citrus since Kumquats.

      ...and a picture of the dessert that we made.

Except we only used Meyer lemons in this.  The Ponderosa was fun, but ultimately far too acidic - and even a touch bitter - for this lovely, lemony dessert.

*If you work in the medical profession and are reading this, you are likely making some sort of snorting sound and muttering, "...unreasonable ALL the damn time."  And you would be correct.

      The one time I watched television during my time in Kauai last month was to watch the Oscars.  I was fully aware of the controversy surrounding the lack of ethnic minorities among the nominees, and I wanted to see if/how the Academy would respond.  I was not disappointed.  I thought this was one of the best, most intelligent, most socially conscientious Academy Awards I've ever seen.*
      It also brought to mind an issue I have struggled with as a writer for many years.  I happen to believe that popular media - TV, movies, music, and particularly books - are among the most effective tools for combating social prejudices.  Human beings judge what is "normal" and "acceptable" by our own experience, whether it's real or entertainment.  This is part of the reason the ethnic majority in any given country (but especially White Americans) have a hard time really empathizing with minorities: they assume their own experiences are typical, because they see it confirmed all over the place!  It's hard to understand your privilege if you're perpetually surrounded by it, just like it's hard for a swimming fish to understand that it's wet.

The real reason these goldfish have googly-eyes?  They discover this totally dry atmosphere up above them, and it BLOWS their MIND!  ...and two minutes later they discover this totally dry atmosphere up above them, and it BLOWS their MIND! ...and two minutes later they discover this totally dry atmosphere up above them, and it BLOWS their MIND!

      I'm not judging or blaming here; this is just how the human brain works.  It takes a lot of continual effort to be aware of and combat this atmosphere of "normalcy."  Which is why it's important for people to be exposed to things that are different: different ethnicities, different religions, different cultures, different ideas, etc.  And the most palatable way to do this is through entertainment.
      Which brings me back to being a writer.  I want to have characters that are not the majority, aka: white, middle-class heterosexuals.  Writing women is easy for me because I'm a woman, and I have no trouble writing men.  I also feel pretty comfortable writing characters of all different sexual orientations.  With enough research I feel reasonably confident that I can write characters of different religious backgrounds.  What I don't feel comfortable writing is main characters of different ethnic/racial backgrounds.
      I want to, but then I feel like I shouldn't.  My brain runs around and around in circles like a dog chasing it's tail.  I'll break it down for you:

ONE HAND: I don't want to relegate all the ethnic minorities in my novels to being 'friends' or other minor characters. There is no reason this female protagonist need to be Caucasian.  I'll make her African American!

OTHER HAND: Really? And what do you - O Pasty Privileged One - know about being African American, and how that might affect this character's thoughts, experiences, and actions?

ONE HAND: Um...what I've read...and studied in Cultural Sensitivity Trainings...and seen in movies....

OTHER HAND: [gives withering look]

ONE HAND: Well, I've got a couple close friends who are African American, and we've talked about issues and experiences.

OTHER HAND: And you think a few episodes of lunch chit-chat qualifies you?

ONE HAND: Er...no.  That's pretty presumptive of me, thinking I can just wade in and write a convincing minority.  I don't want to be a Rudyard Kipling, full of good intent and unfortunate stereotypes.

OTHER HAND: That's what I thought.

ONE HAND: [defeated] Ok, I'll keep my main characters Caucasian.

OTHER HAND: [horrified] So all the ethnic minorities will be 'friends' and minor characters?

Aaaand around and around it goes.  This guy's had way more success than I have.

      Occasionally, some radical solutions come to mind, such as including extensive, self-deprecating disclaimers in the novel's forward. Or taking a few years of American Minority Studies courses at my local university.  They all end up smacking of intellectualization, when what I'm going for is human soul.  So here I am, baring my idiocy to the world (Hi, World!) in the hopes of getting some good advice from other writers.
      And in the meantime, I'll do what I should have done a long time ago: discuss my dilemma with my ethnic minority friends.  I think they're too nice to laugh at me...for more than an hour.



*Not to mention Lady Gaga and Vice-President Biden brought me to tears.  Ironically, the part I found the least sincere and engaging was when the President of the Academy - a black woman - came out on stage to address the accusations of "white washing" and pledging to do more.  She never said what they would do.  It came across as an empty gesture.  Weird.

     This blog post was originally written on the graph-rules pages of a college composition notebook.  Why?  Because I'm n the island of Kaua'i, and a good 6+ hours of every waking day is being spent on the beach.*  And since I would NEVER rick my precious laptop by bringing it to a beach, I've been writing the way God intended: on bleached, pressed, desiccated tree flesh.

Instead of looking at a screen, I've been looking at real-life scenes like this one.

      Now obviously, I'm not 100% "unplugged," because I'm actually a cyborg and disconnection from the network would start the automatic self-destruct sequence programmed into me at birth you're reading this off the interwebs.**  I borrowed my husband's laptop (he leaves it in the hotel room, it's never at the beach), so I could check my email and update my blog today.  But aside from a few texts to locate one another at the farmer's market, this is the first screen time I've had in a week straight.  And it has been GREAT!
      I've heard a lot of stories from people who decide to turn off their digital devices for an extended period of time, and how they go nuts at first.  Or nuts the whole time.  Not me.  For me, this is easy, and it feels like a real vacation because by not having my computer at my fingers, I've given myself permission to do so many other things.  Like stare at the horizon and then just happen to be looking when a whole pod of humpback whales do by, spouting and flipping their flukes!  Did I mention I love this island?
      Anyway, I suspect this is slightly easier for me because I don't use digital devices as much as many of my peers.  I don't own a touch-screen phone, for example.  I own a flip phone that makes calls and sends texts.  That's intentional; if I had a phone that allowed me on the internet all the time, I'd be on the internet all the time!
      When I am on the internet, I'm not checking my Facebook page, because I don't have a Facebook page.  And I love not having a Facebook page.
      Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying, "Hey I have it all figured out and you should try my lifestyle."  This is what works for me.  If you have a screen-intensive lifestyle that you love, then kudos to you for doing it your way, and keep up the good work!  I would never recommend curry to someone who doesn't like spice, and I would never recommend to Kaua'i to someone who doesn't like beaches.  But I would recommend that writers vary their modus operandi to compose from time to time.
      You literally use different parts of your brain while writing with a pen/pencil compared to when you type, just like you use different parts when speaking vs. singing.  You may notice it changed how you tell your story, you may not.  But you probably will notice a difference in what distracts you between sentences.  On a computer, it may be a social media update.  On a notebook propped up against your knee, it may be a ship in the distance, or the sound of the wind through the trees.  And since I'm inspired by the things around me, that works just fine for this here pencil-wielder.

There's the first draft of this blog post.  I wrote this on a lawn chair while I watched surfers.

*The remaining time is divided between hiking, kayaking, swimming pools/hot tubs, great restaurants, and farmer's markets.  Are you hating me yet?

**Being on vacation kind of erodes the filter between my imagination and my mouth/fingers.

      People think they select what they're going to read based on their mood.  "I'm in the mood for a mystery," they say, or "I feel like a good historical thriller."  I'm not sure how many people actually stop to ask themselves why they're in the mood for this or that.  Of course, with my psychology background, I'm nearly always curious why people think or feel the way they do, and usually that includes myself.



     "I feel like reading a non-fiction political exposé," I might say.  Then I would follow up with, "Why in the heck do I feel like reading that, instead of checking out that supernatural thriller novel that's been recommended to me by fifteen people that I trust?"

      The answer, I find, usually lies in what's going on in my life at the moment.  If circumstances are limiting my time with my spouse, I lean towards tales with romantic suspense.  If I'm dealing with life problems out of my control, I want an adventure where heroes face and conquer horrible odds.  When I feel stifled by people forcing their stupidity on me, I want characters full of wry wit and artful schemes.  You get the idea.
      I figured this out about myself pretty young.  The interesting thing is that sometimes I'm not 100% in touch with my feelings.  But I'm nearly always 100% in touch with what I want to read.  Then I can ask myself, "Why am I feeling this intense drive to re-read Harry Potter V again?  Oh yeah...because I'm feeling appalling frustrated waiting for things to happen, and the only person who could understand how I feel is lying behind a dehydrated hydrangea bush, trying to listen to the bloody Muggle news!!!"**

Now that's frustration.

     Many of you probably have a similar insight into your own links between emotional state and reading preference (or TV, or movies, or - maybe the most pronounced medium for emotional channeling - music).  And if you're a writer, you may have noticed this link goes a little deeper when it effects your creative output.  I'm not just talking about the obvious I'm mad at my boss, so I'm going to write a story where my heroine gets promoted above her boss and kicks his stupid butt on the street.  I'm talking about more subtle reflections.
      I've heard some writer's say they're more productive when they're happy, and I've heard others say that they're more productive when they're experiencing some kind of distress.  The idea of the "tortured artist" is obviously very popular, but I think that's only because happy artists are less interesting to learn about (for example, most people know that Jane Austen died young and single--but you don't hear much about her relatively comfortable and happy family life up to that point).  But I've come to the conclusion that I can be productive no matter how I'm feeling, as long as I'm willing to work on the story or scene that best matches my mood.  If I can figure that out, the ideas will come, and the words will follow.  Unfortunately, this doesn't work so well when applying the discipline to complete a single work...but ah, well...such is the burden of a tortured artist such as myself!

Do NOT use these in lieu of adjectives in your novels.

*Yes, I am fully aware that the title of this post is grammatically incorrect.

**Ok, that's an exaggeration.  But only a mild one.

      I really do have a breakfast recipe for you, a low-gluten Kabocha cake made in the Japanese style.  But this morning I woke from a very, very vivid dream of being given a tour of a faerie city.  A tour by train, carriage, and canal boat, no less--I was never permitted to actually set foot in the city.  But I remember the layout, and most of what I was told on the tour, and spent the morning furiously typing it up so I wouldn't forget.
      It was called Zurin, although that's a phonetic spelling--I sort of remember it being written like Zeurin, except the e and the u were joined, like œ is a joined a and e.  But I don't think that actually happens in American english.  Only in faerie english, I guess.
      Anyway, I wanted to share my write-up with you.  It's raw and unpolished, for which I apologize, but it you could hack into my brain and see the beautiful images that linger there, you'd understand why I had to commit what little I could to paper.  Later if I have time, I'll sketch out a rough map, and add that to this post.