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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Getting a Story to Fly Yesterday I finished working off the gigs to my RC Model airplane that surfaced last Thursday. When I finished I taxied it about the yard. The grass was harder to maneuver on than a hard surface but it was like the Club's flying field. Again the touch was so much different than the computer flight simulator. To get the airplane to move the throttle had to be carefully bumped up and watched as the craft began to accelerate. Then the touch had to be coordinated with the rudder to taxi about. I noticed that one of the ailerons wasn’t trimmed. For taxiing that was no big deal but when I let it rise slightly off the grass it pitched to the left and stood on its nose. This revealed a deficiency in the fuselage where the front and rear portions had been insufficiently glued. Again the analogies with writing a longer work reared their heads. Just as in learning to fly, learning to write requires the balancing of many different functions and components. In the Exploratory Writing Workshop (EWW) a lot of effort goes into explaining these functions and how they work together. There is a synergism to flying an RC model that is the same as writing a longer work. There are many little things that have to be learned and included that are not self-evident. For example there must be a blend of dialog and exposition. A writer has to both show and tell. Dialog is an important part of the showing just as exposition aids in the telling. Then there is the life changing event, a series of crisis and things like premise, themes, momentum building, symbolism, repetition and character snapshots as the action proceeds. These are all balls the writer needs to keep in the air and they all act concurrently to provide stability and glide to the story. On my lap-top flight simulator there are a host of different aircraft models a student can choose to fly. One of the most interesting and the aircraft that seems the most analogous to writing a story is the WW2 B-17 Bomber. When the student chooses this one the bomber pops on the screen ready to go. The student gives it the throttle, the engines reverberate and she launches down the runway. A little up elevator and the bomber takes to the air. Then the pilot lightly works the controls and gets it to gain altitude and begin making a slow long circle of the landing field. Care is taken not to let the craft get out of sight but to go out far enough to give the pilot a chance to align with the runway and begin a controlled approach. Meanwhile the RC model is experiencing some turbulence. The nose wants to rise and the trim wants to pull the pilot off course. The whole experience is fits and starts as the plane is aligned with the runway, nosed down and brought onto final approach. The glide angle is critical and so is the airspeed. Too much down elevator and it goes into a steep dive, too little and the pilot will overshoot the approach. Concurrently the throttle must be adjusted downward the closer the runway gets and the ailerons tweaked to make sure everything stays level. As the descent reaches the edge of the field the throttles must be powered still further down as the glide path levels and the aircraft settles onto the runway. If this isn’t like writing a novel I don’t know what is. |
| Authenticity I have mentioned that one of my latest interests is flying RC model airplanes. In order to become as proficient as possible I have a computer flight simulator for model airplanes. It lets me practice flying on my laptop computer. There are huge differences however, in the computer and the actual flying field. On the computer the controls feel different and it’s harder to see the airplane. The good news is that when you crash it’s no biggie. All you have to do is reset and try again. On the other hand, the actual flying field has ambience. It's the real thing. It has openness, noisy engines, and the smell of nitro fuel. Your fingers are on the controls of a real airplane (albeit a scaled down model) that you fly and which responds to your touch. And, alas, if you mess up you wind up with a pile of wreckage. Then there are those times when a model gets too far away from the radio signal and it vanishes into the great beyond. Maybe I like the hobby because of the parallels to my writing, particularly the part where the writer loses the signal and consequently control of the story. I wrote yesterday about geographies and received a comment wondering if a story could be written just following the flow of a vision, as one might take from a dream. My response was that if it was less than a chapter’s worth of words (4K) for me it is certainly possible and there are many fine examples on WDC. However when the story drifts beyond the satuation point of a writer's mind, then like an RC model that goes too far afield, the writer often loses control of the story. In designing the Exploratory Writing Work shop (EWW), this was a working premise. Students were encouraged to write manageable vignettes with common characters and as they warmed to the story, to transition into an outline. Once the outline was finished there was a structure for all the vignettes (chapters) that would go into the novel, stage or screen play. I must say that the process works for those who can find the time and discipline to stick with it. Then there is the touch it takes to write a good story. It is one thing to visualize in mind and quite another to get it written. Thinking and doing are two entirely different things. Then there is the ambience. Sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen is different than the full range of sensory experiences that are experienced in dealing with the real thing. A writer needs to do the research and like an RC flyer go out to the flying site, see the airplanes, smell the nitro, hear the engines rev and see first-hand the agony of disappointment as hours of work and expensive equipment are trashed in a heartbeat. I encourage a writer to go where the drama is, to the extent that they can without endangering their lives. There is a ring of authenticity to having “been there, done that” that imprints a writer’s work, when they take the time to venture as close as possible to the reality of their stories. |
| Geographies of a Story I think of a novel as having geographies. They don’t have to be necessarily separated by vast distances but they are separated by space. For example in the PBS series Downton Abby most of the story takes place in a single location, however that place has distinctive social geographies. So in my view geography is made up of space, both physical and social. For example there is the servant’s space, the lords and ladies space as well as the space of various rooms in which the action unfolds. In most novels this space tends to be geographical. For example in Game of Thrones (GOT) there is the Wall, Winterfell, King’s landing and the lands across the sea. What I find most intriguing about GOT is the way the characters evolve in the various geographies and then migrate into others. In my class The Exploratory Writing Workshop I see the same effect developing naturally as the students write their vignettes. One student shows events based upon his heritage beginning in Italy. These events center in two geographies, a wartime location in the Alps in WW1 and also a small Italian town. Then they shift across the Atlantic into New York City where they become the construction site of the Subway and the Italian Ghetto. The central character moves through and about these geographies and the reader gets to see the journey and the supporting characters, one of whom moves with him. Another student is writing a Western. In this novel the central character begins as a sharpshooter in the civil war, goes to Texas and joins the Rangers, then to a town where he meets his girlfriend and finally to a place for the final shoot out. Identifying these geographies helps the writer set up the components for telling a good story. The reader gets to see a before snapshot of the Central Character in each environment and see how they change. There comes a life changing event in one that influences what happens in the others. The writer sees clearly the premise and themes of the story and can set up the symbolism and foreshadowing the leads from one to the next. If a writer just follows their pencil or keyboard this basic structure cannot emerge as clearly as it does when they write a few exploratory vignettes to begin with and then begin to develop these into a simple and comprehensive outline. After the writer gets a few of these vignettes under their belt, the outline flows much more fluidly and it is actually fun to consider the components and consciously poke them into the framework. |
| You want to wind up a Grease-Monkey? My garage is a tomb of past projects and ambitions. I have so many interests and relics that walking through the shop reveals a panorama of things I have worked on over the years. Examples are welders, lift equipment, pneumatic can crushers, flat head engines, sheet-metal working gadgets, rifle reloading stuff, body working paraphernalia and RC model airplanes. In the house are figurines, fitness equipment and art producing stuff, like paper, paints and brushes. I am a veritable passion going somewhere to happen. Of all of my compulsions, writing is perhaps what I am best at. That is a key point to understand. I am not really all that good at anything but have tried my hand at a host too numerous to mention. Once while still in the service I was in Norfolk and visited the Mariner’s Museum and saw the Henry Huddleston Rogers collection of model ships. I immediately bought a set of plans and went to work trying to replicate one of these beautiful models. For those who don’t know, the British during the Cromwell period were led by Generals who knew nothing about Sea-power. Imagine that--- Great Britain, one of the greatest maritime nations in history led by a bunch of land lubbers. These Army guys were not formally trained in nautical nuance and so had to be shown details of the profession using ship models of incredibly fine detail and craftsmanship. A practice was made of taking all captured vessels and “taking the lines off.” This involved careful measurements taken at various stations along the hull and drawing them on a piece of paper in three views, front top and side. Today this same idea is applied in drafting where any object is represented in these three views from which a three dimensional model of anything can be built. In trade school today this is still being taught but using computer CADs equipment to supplement the old drawing board. On the flying field Chad was telling me that he is building a large scale flying model from three pictures, you got it (front, top and side) from which he has produced plans in tech school for the building of this unique airplane model. Isn’t it amazing how things change but still stay the same? I remember taking Mechanical Drawing in Middle School. It was that or learning a musical instrument, silk screening or print shop. I always loved working with my hands but my parents had other plans for their enigmatic youngest son. My father wanted a soldier and that was that. He once got short in one of his many moments of angst, “What do want to grow up into, a grease monkey?” Actually I would have loved to own and run a gas station… the maintenance bays were always intriguing as were the lifts, welders, tire changers and all that. However, good ole Dad had other ideas and it turned out I did have a bit of aptitude for military service. One of my father’s favorite sayings was “Forget about what you want, if you don’t step up and lead, you're doomed to be led by idiots!” There is some truth in what he said, although it took me a good many years to realize it. |
| Perfecting Your Writing Skills Yesterday I worked on my RC model and got most of the glitches resolved. At the top of the list was getting the radio receiver to "shake hands" with the electronics control chip. I made some progress but it wasn’t until yesterday evening, at the flying field, that Chad helped get it completely pre-flighted. There were some new issues that came up that made the ariplane unsafe to fly. These are easy to fix, but kept me from trying the craft yesterday. It has been an adventure in persistence and frustration which is very much akin to writing a longer work. Like building an RC aircraft, a writer isn’t finished until all the gigs are worked out of the piece they are writing. One of the things I often see is incorrect words that the grammar or spell catcher can’t pick up. Anybody who has read emails sees a host of these and while someone can usually figure out what the writer intended to say, they cause a hick-up in the flow. Readers are more forgiving of those common email errors than they are of writers in general. A writer is expected to have a more pervasive and fluid understanding of the language and what might cause a shrug or eye roll in an email is more like an irritant in a novel. If the publisher or reader sees too many it seriously reflects on the overall quality of the work. I would urge writers to develop a writing habit that strives for perfection. Sure there will be mistakes, but for heaven’s sake try and keep them to a minimum. Use your daily keyboarding to hone your skills in writing lucid grammatical sentences with proper and correctly spelled words. I use my blogs, which I try to write daily, in perfecting my writing art to the best of my ability. When I write, I try and do a blog the first time through that doesn’t have any red or green highlights from the spell or grammar checker. Every time one pops up I pause and note the cause and resolve not to let that error happen again. Sometimes I get through the whole thing without an obvious mistake but understand at the same time, that lurking in what I’ve written is still a host of incorrect word, punctuation and gramatical errors. A writer can’t help but improve if they write every day and pay attention to the details. Please don’t use my work as a guide, (or anyone else for that matter) because while there are many diligent and knowledgable writers out there you are the litmus test. Make it a habit to use your own work as a baseline and try each day to make the current effort better than the last one. |
| A Novel based on a past Heritage For the past fifteen (15) years I've lived on the ten acre home-site of what was once the family dairy farm. After retiring from the military my wife and I built a home on what was once the family homestead. When we acquired the property, which had passed from the family, the house was burned and had to be dismantled. Under the weathered and scorched wooden siding were the original oak logs when it was built in the late 1800’s. I still have some of those logs lying under the pole shed that came crashing down several years ago in a tornado. As I look out the window the wind is blowing from the south. It rained last night. My father used to tell me that a wind from the south meant rain. When I retired, my Dad and Mom built a place on the forty (40) acres next to mine. We had ten (10) good years together. He told me a lot of what it was like growing up here in central Wisconsin. Dad told me that he always knew he was not destined to be a farmer and when the opportunity came for a military career, beginning in WW2, he left and never looked back. That is until I bought the property in the late 1980s. Linda and I like it here. It's a lot cooler than it was on the military bases we served on in the south and we don’t need air conditioning. We sit on a rise and there is always a cool breeze blowing from somewhere. The farmer who once owned it said, in the summer, he would sleep on the porch and there was always a breeze to make for good snoozing weather. When we rebuilt, the basement was dug out to allow for a cement one. You would not believe the size of the rocks (boulders) the original builder used to form the foundation. In the rubble we found a huge gold ring that would go around two of my fingers. At church I've shaken hands with local men who are probably part of that genetic legacy. (Men with huge hands) One of my students is writing a novel based upon his heritage. His writing has developed into a very flowing and lucid style. I sense that he is torn between being true to the actual record, as he knows it, and what it takes to optimize interest in the story. His is not a true historical or biographically novel, but rather a tale based upon family events. This gives him a mixed bag of family baggage to contend with. Some relative is certain to point out, after it is written that… “Aunt Sue had a mole on the right side rather than the left side of her cheek.”  |
| Getting High on EWW Last night I had bad dreams. I dreamed I was in flight school and flunked out. When I went to technical school I found I was a slow learner of things mechanical and what was natural to many of the student’s I struggled with. One of the practical weekly exercises was a series of stations and at one station the requirement was to identify the missing wrench. Wrenches usually come in sets of six to eight and for some reason l just couldn’t seem to come up with the answer in the time frames required. Since I know this is an inherent weakness, I accept my slow learning disability and amble along doing my best. Eventually I wake up one morning and can do it. Like learning a foreign language, I memorize the vocabulary and syntax and one morning discover I can speak it. I suspect that for many this is part of the struggle of developing into a good writer. You simply have to stay with it and accept slow but consistent progress. Two of my students are repeaters. They took one of my courses and liked the process and came back for more. I remember reading some of their earlier works and after the passage of a year, get to see how they are doing now. There are some pretty striking improvements. To sum it up the flow of their writing just seems more professional. Then of course I can see where they have begun applying the components of good writing to the lessons. Not just the lesson of the week but earlier lessons that focused on this or that tool that I now see being routinely taken from their tool box. There are short work writers I read here at WDC who blow my socks off. They should be definitely published and while I haven’t read any of their longer works suspect the problem might be in doing the prep work. If they could only take a comprehensive outline, such as we wind up with in the Exploratory Writing Workshop and for each segment write in their compelling and lucid style, they would be assured of writing a publication quality work. |
| E-Commerce Last Night Linda called three times and I was totally zonked out. The phone is on the night stand next to my bed and I didn’t hear it. I guess it was a combination of fatigue, deteriorating hearing and deep REM sleep. She was upset when she got thru to me at around midnight, our time and one o’clock theirs. (She probably thought I was at the tavern…) Details in a piece of literature are important. Nothing will poison the author’s credibility faster than tainted or embellished facts. While not all readers will know the difference, those who are drawn to a genre will. A reader with a passion for Detective Novels will over time develop an understanding for investigative techniques, procedures and all the nuances of blood, finger prints and DNA evidence. As a consequence the writer needs to be up to speed in the factual underpinnings of the genre in which they write. Yesterday I worked on my airplane and ordered the last of the parts I will need to complete it. Ordering on line has taken E-Commerce to new heights and nowhere is it more evidenced than in catalogues and suppliers who have jumped on the band wagon of the internet spin on the old Catalog idea. It is so easy to miscommunicate in the world of emails and websites that are trying to sell things. For many the game “Who Shot John,” is clearly in evidence. For example, “It wasn’t my fault,” the vendor comes across, “you screwed up the order…” to which the customer replies, trying to remain professional, “I ordered this and you sent that.” Both parties are trying to express their views but gradually the emotion begins to seep in and things start getting personal. On line is where the communications tend to deteriorate fastest and "mostest." That’s because the human interface is weakest in this mode. We communicate with words but there is much more than words being exchanged when two people stand face to face. Next worst is the telephone. At least here the communicators have tone of voice to supplement the words. On line all you have is a stream of Alfa- characters and often the party’s grasp of the English language is less than perfect. Vendors assume too much from customers and customers often don’t really know what they want and at best it’s hard to communicate what you aren’t sure of. I guess the key to e-communications is the Kiss Rule. Say exactly what you want in as few words as possible. The more you write the more potential there is for confusion, not to mention, misspelled words. In addition are those incoherent and ambiguous thoughts. Remember a good piece of writing has three parts. Introduce it, say it and recap what you said. |
| Stage Plays, Screen Plays and Novels Thursday Night is fun at the RC flying field. I took my PT 19 (A two seated single wing trainer) and Tony and Chad were there. They are good buddies and meet at the field that is located geographically about 45 minutes from their homes. The PT 19 I bought several months ago from the club president and was configured to his unique style of RC flying. They got everything configured to a more conventional mode and we fired up the aircraft. Tony flew it and it proved to be a nice flyer. He did not recommend that I fly it however. Instead they offered to let me fly Chad’s plane on a “Buddy Box.” With a Buddy Box there are two control boxes, linked by a wire, one held by the trainer and the other by the trainee. The trainer takes the plane off and gets some altitude and the trainee then takes over. If the student has a problem the instructor can push a button on his box and take over flight of the aircraft. I was amazed by the light touch required to get the aircraft to respond. When I first took control the plane behaved erratically as I over compensated with the controls. Without the box set-up I would have crashed. Slowly I got the hang of it but not to the extent I felt really competent. By then it was getting dark. In this part of the country the wind blows a lot but near twilight for about an hour is a great time-period when the wind lets up a little. It was that kind of an evening and I was glad I took the opportunity to go out to the field. Chad had some pictures on his cell phone and showed me Tony’s crashed war-bird that met its demise last week. The battery that controls the ECM went defective resulting in the misshape. It was disheartening to see that beautiful airplane in pieces all over the ground. As the Play Writing Guy, a reputation I acquired as a consequence of teaching the One Act Play class, I get frequent questions about Screen Plays. I hardly feel competent to speak about Stage Plays and Screen Plays are even more of a stretch. While most writing that involves a longer work, specifically Stage, Screen and Novels, has a lot in common, screen plays are different. The big difference is the “Screen” DUH! The writer needs to understand that the screen is doing some of the talking and write with that in mind. It is akin to but different from the Stage play which also has a screen of sorts. The big difference to me is the dialog. For both, words are important, but with the stage play the language dominates while with the screen play the imagery dominates. With the Novel, where there is no stage or screen, the author must make use of the reader’s imagination and create therein the stage or screen. This means more exposition to provide amplification of what the reader cannot physically see. These are important differences and account for why the three types of literature read so differently and why they must be written with the dynamics of each of the genres in mind. Even so the three have much in common and the basics of what the Exploratory Writing Workshop tries to bring out is of great use to a writer in any of the three modes. |
| Geographical Diversity in Writing a Novel I hate it when Microsoft barges in and posts an update and I lose what I have been working on. Maybe it was just one of those things that was meant to be and the world is better off without the blog I was working on. Yesterday I worked on my RC Model airplane. I’ll take a picture of it today and try and reduce it for my blog. What a convoluted process that is… getting it sized small enough to transfer to WDC. If anyone knows a simple way please let me know. I’ll dress my blogs up more with photos. Anyway the hinged surfaces are finished to the ailerons, elevator and rudder. As I was finishing up my Exacto-Knife slipped and stabbed me in the wrist. It went deep and about an inch and a half down my wrist. lOuch! Luckly the vein was not punctured. Next I need to add the servos and those linkages. It is starting to look like a flyer. Yesterday on a walk l focused on how to pull my novel Essence and the Stones together. It is set in three different geographical locations and the characters come together in the end. It is structurally something like Game of Thrones but I was working on it prior to reading George Martin’s series. His novel showed me the mechanics of how to do it. In my class I get the students to write vignettes and that is actually pretty much how I have written this novel. Instead of the six (6) I require there, are many more loosely organized into the three stories. This broadens the scope more, allows for more characters and makes the story much more interesting. Part of the problem is that since realizing the importance of templating they are written in a hodge-podge of forms, some mostly dialog, others mostly exposition and some a skewed combination of both. Further many of the components and devices common to good story telling are missing altogether. I have a vision in mind of how to go about it but it will be time consuming. As I think about this approach to writing a novel I can see its application to other novels I have started and let fall by the way side. They are simply too linear and need to start in different social geographies and flow slowly together by the end of the book. Today the cleaning lady comes and I have to clear out with the dog. If I stay she will talk her head off. Really she is a very nice lady but Linda and I have learned it is best to leave her to her own devices when she comes. I need to make the bed, wash the clothes, and do the dishes before she gets here. Does she have us trained or what? |
| Later On This morning at zero dark-thirty (3:30 AM) I took Linda to Madison to catch her flight to Hot ‘Lanta. It was 59 degrees here and I was cold. When I came home I put my long-johns on. Can you believe that? My friend, Henry, came back from a fishing trip to Canada and he said he was cold the whole time. Maybe it has something to do with getting old. I bought a book on Airbrushing. Hope it will get me up to speed on the basics. I didn’t have much luck to begin with and I discovered that the container that hangs under the brush needs a siphon hose. Duh! I though one was in there but when I opened it yesterday it was not in evidence. I think the “Hide-a-behind” stole it. That’s what my younger daughter used to tell me when she couldn’t find she needed. Another of her favorite saying was “Later On.” “…I’ll get to it later on.” This afternoon I worked on my model airplane. I made some good progress on the boom section, the elevator and the rudder. Mostly it was cutting the slots for the hinges that allow the control surfaces to move. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I am cold to the bone. More tomorrow. |
| Summary Statistics About two miles from my farmette is a hill with one of those wind generating turbines on it. I find it very useful. If it is turning I know that the flying field will be too windy for my skill level. Most of the time it’s turning, so there isn’t a great many opportunities for learning to fly. In Adams-Friendship there is a smaller one in front of the Electrical Coop. I was excited and went inside to get some data and the sales person/expert told me it was an awful design, barely able to generate enough electricity to power a light bulb. I was thinking about telling the White House. Sounds like something they might be interested in. Tomorrow Linda will be flying to Atlanta to see her parents. I will be driving her to Madison to catch her flight. I’ll be batching it for a week. These visits are hard on her but it’s something she feels obligated to do. Used to be I went with her but she finds it difficult to be with me and her parents at the same time. I told her the same thing once when my parents were still alive and she asked if I remembered when I asked her to participate? I took that for a “No.” I got another vignette submission which will make it two out of 5. I am comfortable with that. Writing reviews is very time consuming and if the students don’t submit it gives me more time for other things. My daughter tells me to quit worrying about what others do. They have their own agendas and I need to let others run with the priorities in their lives and not worry about it. Linda bought some Stella-Doros she wants me to plant out front underneath the split rail fence. That is a good small job and I’ll get on it when I finish my blog. My daughter writes a great blog. She's an Army Wife and writes about her experiences in the service. She gets a lot more views then I do and that is no surprise because she is a very talented writer. Often Linda comes in while I’m writing to show me the Imp’s latest creation. Every morning I click “My Account” and then “Summary Statistics.” I get an idea of the number of views I got for the previous day. Actually I think some of the numbers are bogus and are a consequence of the “Random Read” generator but if there are 2 or more hits I take these as legitimate. If one gets three I reread it to see if there is something I'm missing. Actually reading back over some of your old stuff, that is generating activity, is a worthwhile exercise. I get all kinds of ideas on how I might have made a vignette more interesting or better written. |
| Clutter For those of you who follow this blog, there was a period where I posted pictures of my workstation. It was littered with a myriad of figurines of all types. The only criteria I use for acquiring them is the “Wow” factor. Regardless how cheap or expensive, if one hits my WOW button and I can afford it, I add it to the collection. There was a movie produced in the past couple of years, I don’t even remember the exact name… something like Night at the Museum with Adam Sadler. He was the night watchman and every night the characters would come alive. My characters do the same thing but it’s in my imagination. The more vivid the details on the casting and the more mind boggling the paint job, the greater the impression they make. On on a good dream night I get to see them interact. Usually when I wake up the recollections are all too fleeting, like fairies that scurry away with the dawn, but during the day, when I look closely at one, as I’m seated at my writing desk, I remember things about them that I couldn’t be making up for the first time. My Cousin, Alec, came over yesterday while I was taking a nap. Napping is becoming more of habit as I grow older. It doesn’t bother me nor is it particularly reassuring. It’s just something that happens more and more these days. Anyway Linda told him she’d get me up and he said “No.” Alec likes to drop by and see what I am doing. Last week he saw the cement yard statue I was working on and it must have intrigued him. It is a statue of a peasant girl in a classic theme carrying a water jug. It must have been originally intended for a garden because it has a water line that runs up from the base to the jug on her shoulder. The piece was badly pitted and cracked but originally it was a good casting when you consider that cement was media that was used. The original art work, used to make the mold, was about one-half scale which makes her about three feet tall. She is so heavy I can't lift her without a mechanical aid. I decided to finish (restore?) her using my auto body techniques for restoring old car bodies. So I blew off all the old accumulation of grit and grime, gave her a good scrubbing with degreasing liquid and began sanding the rough spots. Then I applied a glazing compound to fill in pitting and cracks. Then it was time to practice with my air brush. The idea here is to begin with the flesh using a dark skin tone and then layer it with a lighter tint. It doesn’t matter if you get paint on her hair or dress because that will be dealt with later. I watched a girl doing it on U-Tube and that gave me an idea for the process. Alec told me that there is a great debate going on over whether or not the Greeks painted their statues. Little unexplainable flecks are being found in some of the crevices of famous pieces. I suspect they did because they were big into realism and tried to make their statues as lifelike as they could. |
| It’s Another Saturday Night…. (Remember the Song?) Today I got up early and went to the flying field. It must not have been early enough because by the time I got there at 9’oclock, everyone was gone or they never showed up to begin with. Anyway the wind picked up, I was alone and decided to walk through the procedure of running up the PT-19 Trainer I have. So I put it together, fueled it and tried to start the engine. Alas it wouldn’t start and I decided that three strikes and you’re out and went to the Hobby shop and bought a new glow plug (Model Airplane spark plug) I have a theory and that is that if a machine won’t start it is always the spark plug that is to blame. I came home, had lunch and checked my email. I was halfway hoping that the four students that failed to submit their vignettes on Thursday would have posted. Alas, this was not the case. Actually I long ago resolved that I would not let others drive my life and went out to the garage and worked on my models. After installing the new plug I got my PT 19 to going and it ran great. Later, Linda and I went to the Thresheree in Plainfield Wisconsin. It was very hot and we didn’t stay long. I wish it had been cooler because I really like to listen to the “Hit and Miss” engines running. From about 1900-1920 these engines were produced to operate cheaply and help mechanize farm labor. They were put to use sawing, pumping water and grinding corn to name just a few of the tasks they were adapted to do. They did a lot of cool things back in the good ole days, one of which was leaving behind a legacy of good writing. Those old time men and women writers could really spin a yarn. They understood the art and science of writing and left behind a legacy of fine literature. Now this is the time I usually pull out my soap box and start lecturing but tonight I just don’t have it in me. Linda is next to me in bed reading book three of Game of Thrones and from time to time she tries to weasel out of me answers to what she sees unfolding. I tell her to keep reading. I wrote the Hobby Shop in Florida about some of the problems with my order and they have been very responsive and accommodating. I told them that I was new to the hobby, had won an airplane and provided the specifications and told them I want to make an electric flyer out of it. They provided some recommendations which I followed exactly and still didn’t get the stuff I wanted. I mean I still needed a control box (transmitter) receiver for the airplane and four servos to operate the rudder, elevator and alierons. Anyway they were helpful but didn’t really read carefully my first email. These guys are so technically advanced in the hobby that they are next to worthless trying to communicate with a novice. Have you ever noticed that the more advanced in a field people get the more difficult they have communicating with newbies? The make too many assumptions. I guess the lesson learned in any industry is that if a customer is a novice they need to be led down an entirely different path than experienced customers. Is it just me, or have some of you noticed the same thing? |
| Ski King, There was a song when I was growing up about a water-ski performer named Ski-King. It goes on about how ski-king had a wife who drove the boat and didn’t look back. Ski-King could do all the tricks and became ever bolder until he one day decided to try putting the handle to the tow rope around his neck. He hit some turbulence and fell and his wife dragged him around the lake. It was a gallows humor type song like” A Boy Named Sue.” I remember the line at the end and it went like this. “So the moral of the story, is keep your head out of the noose, and never ever, ever grab, onto something you can’t turn loose.” As I watch my students struggling with the concept of a Dramatic Premise (DP) the words to this song come back to me. It raises the question, “What is the difference between a Dramatic Premise and a Moral.” No doubt some professor can tell me but when I look up moral in my references I can’t seem to find a good definition. I suspect that if they are not the same thing they are very close in meaning. So I think I will add “Moral” into the definition of DP. Now stop here a moment and realize that some feel a writer should not consciously consider DPs, themes or underlying message during the writing process.” Somehow I can’t relate to this. While I see the benefit of doing exploratory sketches before starting a novel that might be uninhibited and searching, I can’t imagine actually writing one without a sense for what the story is about, how it begins, the crisis that build momentum, a climax and some sort of a tapering down or epilogue. In the Playwright’s process Patrick Shanley explains, “I have always been amazed at writers who start from theme. I don’t know how they do it. It’s a way that definitely happens and there are people who do this. They have a theme, an abstract idea that they feel passionately about and they write a play to the purpose of dramatizing that theme. “ He goes on to explain that he begins with character and emotion and says indirectly to his audience, “I know something and I’m going to tell you about it. Brothers and Sisters I have brought you to this place because I am in terrible trouble and don’t know what to do. And this is the situation, and now I going to try and work it out right in front of you.” To me this says some writers start with character and set them in the midst of a dilemma. This is opposed to starting with a story line and plugging in the characters. Here the writer starts with the characters and weaves the story line in around them. I have no problem with this approach and to use it to begin the Exploratory Writing Workshop, writing sketches or vignettes. These character vignettes beget a story rather than a story begetting the characters. (It is the old chicken or the egg thing.) However, before starting to write a stage, screen play or novel the writer has to have a sense for a beginning, middle and end; maybe not to start with, but in phase two after the sketching, and before the final writing begins. Further that this novel has to be about something. Front door or back door the writer needs to know what the novel is about and what the message is trying to express. If it just grinds on as an unrelenting stream of conscious, how cool is that? While some novels are biographical most are not principally written in this vein, and if you like one and examine it closely you will see an overarching message and underlying themes that push the submerged central concept along. Am I beating a dead horse? |
| Form and Function, I might have told my readers that last weekend I won this model airplane kit. It came however minus the motor and ECM gear, like the receiver and servos. The receiver is what receives the signals from the control box on the ground and it distributes the signal to servos that go in and out and control the function of the elevator, flaps and wing ailerons. Like many things in life I began with a zero base of knowledge on this telemetry and had no guide for ordering what I needed in the proper sizes and compatibility. Thus my first order fell short of getting me all the parts I needed. Many writers find themselves in this same dilemma when they try and write a longer work. They start building without a real understanding of what they are doing and in some cases missing or underappreciating the importance of functional components. They just sort of start gluing and bolting stuff together and expect it to fly (float, scoot?) when they get done. They just follow their muse or intuition and hope when they finish, they will have a coherent piece of literature. Now in a big and complex project this simply won’t work. If something is small and self-evident then maybe it will but in something big, the developer (writer) needs to have a crystal clear understanding of how all this writing is going to fit together from start to finish. In a smaller work, say something less than a chapter’s worth in length, a writer can often juggle all the pieces in their head and write something half decent. In a longer work however, regardless of how talented or intelligent the writer is, there comes a saturation point where the “Bytes” of working memory or processing are exceeded by the “Bytes” of the requirement and when this happens the whole damn thing begins to fall apart. I think NANO is a great undertaking but only if first the author does the developmental work. This is more than a simple outline of what the story will entail but extends to a grasp of all the components and how they interrelate and feed into one another. Think of it as a wiring diagram of an automobile and you begin to see the difference between what you did for a term paper in High School and what is needed for a novel. Think of it as the componentry in a modular computer program and you get the idea for the scope of the developmental effort. Once you do this, the huge undertaking is reduced to “Byte” sized chunks that the human mind can handle. Then the daunting task is reduced to “Baby Steps” the writer can take, that can be managed while still achieving a respectable word count with the assurance that once the fire-hose of words is over that what the writer has written has a symmetry and functionality that will otherwise be lacking. |
| Time Worn Components Yesterday I took my dogs for their morning walk and my old lab let out a yelp and laid down in the ditch alongside the road. Her hips had been getting weaker and weaker and she was whimpering a lot in the night. Anyway she gave me this “I’m done Boss, look” that like to broke my heart. In the past I always shot my dogs when the time came, but this is not a good way to say goodbye to a beloved pet. Instead I took her to the vet. I held her while he gave the injection and she was gone in less than ten seconds. I recommend this approach and while it might not be for everyone it worked well for me. My students are struggling with Dramatic Premise and Themes. In Game of thrones a repetitive theme is given by Ned Stark when he states words to the effect that…”if a ruler intends to execute someone he/she should swing the blade themselves… if they can’t do this then maybe the crime doesn't warrant the punishment.” Now please, let’s not discuss the merits of that recurring theme in GOT but rather note that it exists and that it is recurring. It repetitively rears its head throughout the entire series. It is a good example of a theme and how like ribs on a ships keel, they attach themselves in a long novel or series of novels. I think of them as trees that spring up from the common root of the story. The root is the Dramatic Premise and is a macro encapsulation of what the work is all about. For example a DP might be “Liking leads to Loving.” (A popular old military saying) I can visualize a novel where the Central Character marries someone they don’t love to begin with and the relationship grows from there. There might be several themes that begin to express themselves like shared adversity bonds a man and woman together or selfness acts of devotion form endearing and enduring sentiments. In the book this premise and these themes could speak to the reader at an often unconscious level. The question I ‘oft ask myself is what is this novel really about and when I see a theme I note it and note at the end of the book if it is recurring. If, after you do a pleasure read of a literary work you really like, you might consider reading it again for science and methodology. Symbolism is often tied to these core structural elements. It’s like reading a sentence for meaning and then reading it once again after you diagram it. The traditional writers understood this better than we do today and realized the resonance that a DP, themes, symbolism and repetition bring to a novel. Today these elements seem to be included more by chance or afterthought rather than by premeditation. As a result, even great novels could be so much more had these components been included along with a little prior planning. |
| A real SOB My approach to this diet of mine is the same one I took to quit smoking. It is a commitment to change a habit of behavior that has formed over a lifetime. I was always thin and could eat anything. That freedom led to an insidious weight gain after the age 50 that wound up making me look like a skinny person that swallowed a basketball. Several years ago my wife introduced me to a low carb diet and that was when I experienced, for the first time, a condition that I call “Conversion.” Right or wrong when I am dieting I ‘oft hit what can only described as an “edge” in my personality, that is when I feel a condition I describe as a nervous burn. I get real edgy and wired and begin to behave like my mother did when she often seemed to be walking on the ceiling. The way I explain it to myself is that in conversion my body runs out of food and starts burning fat. That is a much different feeling than when my body is using the food I eat to provide for all its energy requirements. I really hate this feeling however, when I weigh the next morning my weight is usually down. Not significantly, but down. I know my readers have little interst in my weight-loss program but it is a part of my life and what I think about I write about. This weekend one of my blog readers noted that as she has matured as a reader she likes an antagonist that is not totally beyond redemption, just as she likes a central character that is not lily white. I might be putting words in her mouth but that is the idea. I agree with her. For some reason white hat and black hat characters don’t resonate with my experience. So I often find myself writing about antagonists and protagonists who are a blend rather than unadulterated. The common model we see in writing however, takes a different tract. Readers tend to want an unmitigated antagonist that is bad to the bone. And, while they can accept some glitches in the protagonist they want to see that the good in them has a clear control over the bad. It seems that readers don’t want to be confused by the shades of grey they see in the real characters in their lives. While this is the way reality plays readers don’t read necessarily for a clear depiction of reality. Why should they…? They see enough of that in their own lives. And so while a blended character might resonate better than a concentrated one for believability, keep in mind that readers are more than ready to suspend disbelief, if it gives them the sharp distinctions leading to the conflicts that animate their interests. That’s my take anyway. If you have an antagonist in your novel make sure they are a real SOB. |
| Dark but Good Yesterday was pretty exciting at the flying club. I won the grand prize raffle. It was a nice model airplane that was a kit but one that doesn’t require much work to assemble. It was very windy and I was amazed by the skill of the Radio Control (RC) flyers. About forty flights had been completed, when our club’s flight instructor took up a plane and crashed it on takeoff. Opps! One of my dark writers in the EWW is very good. The irony is that he seems to have a sort of writer’s “Death Wish.” Since the class is 13 plus I have him submit to me before he posts on the forum and his material so far has been very to moderately GC. I suspect most readers would not get past the first paragraph of what he writes before tossing it aside like it was on fire. In his second vignette however, which might have been postable, if it were not for the F and C words, which might have easily been softened, I was amazed with how well it was written. I mean it had a wonderfully different supporting character and the whole vignette was written in a way that built suspense and gave a totally unexpected and surprising ending. It was one of those I get in a blue moon that made me think WOW! There is a sad irony here…. This guy should be read but 99 percent of readers will probably never give him a chance. Maybe I can get him to tone it down some but I don’t see much chance of that. So I’ll just enjoy reading his material while I can. I am not a psychologist, and I write a lot of material that does not reflect who I am. For example in my Sensual Prose I practice male and female characters with an orientation I am not attracted to. The other day I got a “1” star rating and since there was no written review had to puzzle whether it was attributable to poor writing or disgusted the orientation of the reader. I use WDC to practice these skills in a genre I will be using in future novels I intend to write. For example I intend to write in a way that pushes the envelope of acceptability without exceeding it. I have noted in my reading that many good writers struggle when it comes to writing good sensual prose. Today Linda and I will be taking the dogs to the groomers. Our Lab will only get a bath (She Sheds) but the Doodle will get stripped. While they are being groomed we will go by the flying field and make an appearance. Linda is really thrilled with the prospect. She is OK however, if she has her IPOD for games, some woman’s magazines, the radio and a nice breeze blowing. We won’t be staying long. |
| A Meaningful Experience When you live on a farmette, out in agro-land one of the things you have to do is go to the dump every Saturday. It is a social event of sorts and you get to talk to some of your neighbors in the Township that you otherwise only see in a blue moon. Amid the dumpsters and the smell of rotting garbage and sour chemical wafting a good time is had by all. The dogs enjoy it especially in that they get to see other dogs in the cars and trucks, receive a chewy milk bone from the “Dump Man,” and get to smell the smells. (Dogs like smells we as humans don’t particularly like) Once I let them out and they took off for the next county and I spent half the day looking for them. After that it will be off to the RC flying field and I will take my camera and get some pictures of this type of event which is not something all my readers will be familiar with. I got two submissions for the EWW class in and will review them tonight. I like reviewing the student vignettes and never cease to be surprised at what they come up with. One student has difficulty meeting the 13 plus standard and I make him submit to me first by email. He is a bit of a dark writer (A large bit) but he comes up with some interesting material if beneath all the oppression of the world he writes about. Actually there is a sense of humor way down at the bottom of the well and I wish the other students could share it but even though the most recent vignette comes close it has some of the proscribed language. I have another dark writer who uses the course to get feedback on material he has already written. I don’t mind this but it doesn’t meet the lesson requirements and when students use the course in this way I wish they would tell me and I could adjust the workshop to meet the specific needs of the student. What the student doesn’t realize is that I have read much of his manuscript when he posted it in other venues over the past six months. I know I should require students to follow the syllabus but I am not the controlling sort and let the workshop expand to meet the needs of everyone who cares to participate. You really need some of this attitude given the skill levels of some who sign up and have a genuine desire to improve as writers. I had one student several classes ago who had a remedial understanding of English but a strong desire to learn. So I would pick out the three most glaring deficiencies and tell her to correct these. It was the best I could do and it seemed to work. The results were not anything to brag about but she was persistent and her writing improved. Sometimes I think that Life sends ups people from outside our expectations and rather than walk away I try and make the interaction a meaningful experience for both of us. |
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