creativity is an addiction

 journal, writing life  2 Responses »
Jan 262012
 
20110620-051936.jpg

A golden outfit made from spider silk has gone on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum:

The four-metre-long hand-woven textile, a natural vivid gold colour, was made from the silk of more than one million female golden orb spiders collected in the highlands of Madagascar by 80 people over five years.

I remember hearing about endeavours by scientists to mass-produce spider silk. The approach, if I remember correctly, was to modify the DNA of goats so that spider silk proteins were produced in the goats' milk. I even wrote a (terrible) story around that premise during my stint at Clarion South. But I haven't heard any more on that front for years — I wonder what happened?

I never knew that anybody had collected enough spider silk by hand to weave fabric from it, which is apparently an until-now forgotten art.

The effort involved in such an endeavour — catching the spiders every morning, harnessing them into contraptions designed to extract their silk, making thread out of the silk and textile out of the fabric — the patience and time and labour that has been poured into it is … humbling.

It made me think about all the energy that I pour into my writing. Sometimes, when I'm tired, when I'm frustrated with my chronic time-poverty, it's easy to feel dispirited. About a lack of progress, or the latest mental block, or the sheer enormity of the task still to go. And I can't whinge, like I want to, because I chose this, and I keep choosing this. Every day I choose writing. (Even if it feels like a Clayton's Choice, but that's a topic for a whole different post.)

It helps me to stumble across stories like this. Tales of fascination, and the endeavours born out of and carried onwards by that fascination. Perhaps making a coat out of spider silk does nothing for us on a practical level: but I, for one, smiled when I heard of it. And felt inspired.

And now I have a new trick to add to my toolbox for when I get the grumps with the process: I shall simply consider my words to be little golden orb spiders. All I need to do is catch a few dozen a day, and coax them gently into a pleasing order.

And hope the wily bastards stay put.

never trust an outliner

 away come away, journal, writing life  Comments Off
Aug 042011
 
shydamselflyicon

The other day I stumbled across a link, something along the lines of 25 ways to torment your characters, and in idly perusing this list I realised that one of the reasons I'm struggling with momentum on the faerie novel is because the characters' wants, needs and fears have evolved as part of the plot but I hadn't kept up. I need to check what's changed and what hasn't, and whether that leads to new plot.

And do you know what this means? This means I'm trudging (once again) through the dreaded Middle of the Book. Figuring shit out in the dark, with no idea how I'm going to get where I need to, or whether that's even where I still need to arrive.

And that's okay. I'm practiced at this, I know how to write a book without knowing the path.

What's not okay is that this time I wrote a synopsis. Isn't that the whole point of planning in advance? I trudged and slugged through months of trying to plan this novel in advance — one of my least favourite writing activities — specifically so I wouldn't have to feel lost in the middle and OUTLINERS, YOU LIED TO ME.

So, okay, it wasn't the world's most comprehensive synopsis. But I still maintain that's not the point.

And also, where the hell do I fit all this worldbuilding that dropped into my head while watching a show about Darwin's orchids? Huh?

chasing zen. again.

 journal  Comments Off
Feb 042011
 

It's not often that I suffer from writer's block.

For me, it strikes when I have too much to say, and not enough time to say it. My head fills up with fragments of sentences and splinters of stories, none of it tied to any other piece or theme, just a great swirling structure-less tangle. All that mulch in my head is so busy growing such a multitude of different ideas that none of them can get a clear shot at the sunlight.

Blog posts and stories get tangled together, pairing off wrongly and spawning little mutant baby ideas, until my focus disintegrates and I find myself thinking re-tagging my mp3 library is a worthwhile use of my time right now.

I've never been at a loss for something to say, particularly, not when writing. I simply get choked by how much I want to say, or by how best to say it. (That last is easier to attack at least: write something appalling, and edit it mercilessly into something cogent, and call it done. (For some reason that tactic works much better on writing fiction than it does on writing a blog post, though.)) I want to write about silence, and breaking it; about conversations and confrontations; about the mechanics of a story, its structure and its heart; about innovation as opposed to invention; about people who can't give up and people who can. I want to finish that troublesome thorn girls story, and crank out some mileage on the faerie novel. I need to get that international report done for the dayjob, and prune back that tangle of further correspondence breeding in my in-tray faster than I can sterilise them.

Instead, so far, my mp3 library has sprouted a more comprehensive collection of cover art.

there's a small part of my life left wanting

 announcements, journal, shadow bound, shadow queen, the binding  Comments Off
Dec 192010
 

» of eBooks »

Sometimes, I admit I indulge in a spot of ego-Googling. And lucky I do, because otherwise I would be blissfully unaware that Shadow Bound is already available in eBook format. Look! And over there!

There are actually quite a few links, too many for me to try collecting them, so it's best by far to simply google. But for all of those wanting to know when Shadow Bound is out in electronic format, the answer is … um, now?

 
» of Stock for Sale »

And while I'm at it, I have some copies of Shadow Queen and Shadow Bound left over from the launch of the latter, and I've finally gotten around to putting up a webpage detailing how someone who might want a paper copy of my book for somewhat less than you'd pay through an Australian book store might be able to buy them directly from me.

If that sounds like you, the stock for sale page has the details you want.1

 
» of the Mythical Third Book »

I've been getting a flattering trickle of emails, lately, asking about a third book in The Binding series.

Deb, these emails ask, Deb, is there a third book? Carn, Deb. Write me another. ZOMG YOU'RE NOT ENDING IT LIKE THAT ARE YOU?

Now, I will admit that I ended Shadow Queen rather cruelly. I hereby publicly confess that what I did in SQ was set everything up … and tie nothing off. In Shadow Bound I was not QUITE so cruel, in that there is tying up of major plot threads, but there is also that most beloved (to me) of endings, the open ending.

Originally, I wasn't planning on writing beyond that ending. Not because there was not enough story to justify anything further (in fact it's quite the opposite!), but more because that's simply as far ahead as I'd planned. But lately I've found myself wondering just what plays out after that closing line of Shadow Bound …

So I've been entertaining (i.e. tormenting and frustrating myself and those around me) with unanswerable questions in an attempt to dig some more of Matilde's story out of my brain. If I can come up with something workable, I'll be submitting a proposal on it. Which may or may not find favour with those who have the power and resources to publish these things.

So while I still can't make any promises, let's just say the mythical Third Book, while still a cryptozoo, may one day be dragged, kicking and screaming, into existence.

 
» of Something Completely Different »

This has absolutely nothing to do with The Binding books, I just think it's unutterably cool: boa constrictors born by virgin birth.

  1. I hope. It IS currently Sunday, and I take no responsibility for the state of my brain. If it doesn't answer your questions, please ask! [↩]

impatience for the new excludes … the new

 journal  4 Responses »
Jul 212010
 

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a new song I instinctively liked, which turned out to be by … Let's call this artist Hot New Thang.1

But after a couple more listens, I just started to feel cheated and, eventually, resentful.

The reason is simple: HNT's song has a very distinctive sound to it. Someone else's sound.

Now, being a writer rather than a musician, I haven't spent a whole lot of time analysing music and its nuances, so it's possible my ear is simply not refined enough to hear the difference between HNT and the someone else who very obviously influenced said HNT. But even if that is the case, that makes me no different from the rest of the listening public, who will also notice the similarity. I'd lay bets that a good slice of said listening public will turn away from HNT's first album because it's derivative.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest victim of our hunger for the next new thing.

We, the consuming public, are always hungry for new voices. I imagine this is normal enough. We like art that speaks strongly to us, and new voices have, on account of being new, an element of surprise that can increase their impact. So the people who feed us our art are always looking for the next new thing.

That's not the problem. The problem is what happens when we find that next new thing. Because lately it seems to me that, more and more, we're rushing our artists.

We're finding them young — awfully young.2 And they have potential, oh boy do they have potential, they're damn well overflowing with it. But they're so young they haven't found their own voice yet. They're so young that their voice is nothing more than a clumsy mishmash of all their influences, with a scintillating promise of their potential peeking out through the gaps.3

And we idolise them, not for what they've actually achieved, but for their potential. What we think they can achieve. We rush them into celebrity so fast we push them ahead of their learning curve, so far ahead that they outstrip their current talent. By the time their talent has caught up with them, and they've digested all their early influences and found a truly unique voice of their own, the advertising/celebrity machine has done its job so well, and saturated every corner of the market with every possible mention of them, that we're bored.

Somehow, we who are eternally hungry for new voices, have created (or at least participated in creating) a system that ensures the only new voices we get are too young to be anything but derivative — and when those voices outgrow their origins, and evolve into something truly new, we're so overexposed we can't hear it.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Is anybody else frustrated to all hell and back by this?

  1. Bear with me — I'm going to try and tell this story without naming names. Partly because I have an aversion to speaking negatively in a public forum about creative work I didn't enjoy, for whatever reason, and mostly because names have no real bearing on the point I'm trying to make. [↩]
  2. It occurs to me at this point that my use of the word young may lead you to suspect I mean calendar age. And while I'm not precluding calendar age, what I really mean is in terms of experience in a creative endeavour. So if you're suddenly thinking Ah-hah! By HNT she means that child-star who has a song consisting entirely of, as far as I can make out, the word Baby repeated over and over and over again until you would like your eyeballs to spontaneously start bleeding just for something different to break the pace, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but he is not the artist who triggered this thought. (And if you're now thinking I thought you weren't going to name names, Deb? … um, yeah. Shaddup.) [↩]
  3. This is normal. Everyone's early work is derivative, because with anything you learn by doing, and you learn how to do something by copying someone who already can. And only with practise do you learn how to borrow the skillsets of other artists without falling into mimicry. [↩]

but i guess they do that here, i dunno

 hijinks, journal, the wages of honey, writing life  Comments Off
Mar 082010
 

The lovely Mek posted this yesterday, and I can't help but post it myself for those of you who read my journal but not hers, because I love me a bit of whimsy, and this sort of stuff makes me laugh out loud:

In other news, I appear to have started yet another novel. Yes, before finishing that short story which has glomped and bulled its way into novellette territory, and before finishing the faerie novel. And before so much as starting those seven or so novels lined up in the back of my brain, impatiently waiting their turn to be written. Er, oops? My only excuse is that enthusiasm is infectious. My plan is to finish the short story while writing this new novel, and then finish the faerie novel while writing this new novel. No plan survives first contact, of course, but we'll see how we go.

I'm keen to get more writing done this year, partly because after Shadow Bound I have nothing contracted and, you know, I'd really like that to change; and partly because my ability to pin words to the page seems to have slowed down frighteningly of late. I don't know if the words I am pinning down are better put together, and will therefore require less editing. Here's hoping, because that would mean the extra time I'm taking now will be recouped later and it might all even out. (That just sounds too neat to be true, though.)

next time i'm near a pet store…

 journal  Comments Off
Aug 302009
 

Lookit: Know what's cooler than Wolverine? A newt!

The Spanish ribbed newt responds to threats by thrusting out its rib bones, which then get coated with toxic skin secretions. The newt is actually rotating its ribs forward until their spear-sharp points pierce through warts in the animal's skin.

Damnit, now I want me a newt. On the upside, a newt is possibly one of those pets you could legitimately have in a rental property. H'm…

i can see my future, and there are edits in it

 announcements, journal, shaping lily, writing life  8 Responses »
Jul 112009
 

Today I have exceedingly good news: I have sold a story to ASIM. Tentative publication date is April 2010.

For those playing along at home, I wrote the first draft of this story in January 2005, during my stint at Clarion. (Actually, since it was my week one story, I probably started it, in some brief and jotted form at least, in late December 2004.) I can't remember what I called it at the time (probably something genius like "Untitled"), but it's since acquired the title "Shaping Lily".

The story was inspired by the meeting of two ideas: an epic(ish) quest fantasy story wherein the main character was a little old lady, and Web of Light, by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. (And in seeking out that link for you, I've only just gone and gotten myself lost in browsing Stephanie's site. Again.)

It's a quaint little story, and one I'm very fond of, so I'm glad it's found a good home.

And in updating my spreadsheet which records these things for me, I've belatedly realised I have exactly one short story currently doing the rounds of submissions, and nothing else to offer. I do have a handful of short stories in serious need of revising (some of my Clarion stories are still languishing, for example — although I think they'll stay languishing, except for one, which may turn into a novel. Like I need yet another novel idea in the queue. Still, too many ideas is a nicer problem to have than not enough ideas, I suppose).

H'm. Perhaps it's time to work on revising or drafting a short story or two.

the view from the tram

 ficlets, journal  4 Responses »
Jun 232009
 

There's an old man I see on the trams, every couple of weeks or so, has the look of decay about him. Emaciated, with wisps of papery hair clinging to the back of his grey-skinned scalp, ears grown too large for his frame, and eyes sinking into their sockets. The flesh of his eye sockets is so heavy, so ancient and stretched, that they sag open, revealing their raw pink interior, in stark contrast with the yellowed eyes above, like a basset hound caught in the pallid grey throes of chemotherapy.

His suit is neat, and pressed, although it is probably as out of date as he is, and I've only ever seen the one suit on him.

There are stories in the creases of his skin, stories in the way he moves, the way he holds his shoulders as he waits. Stories in the quiet way he accepts everyone's furtive glances, and in the weave of his well-preserved suit. A thousand stories, carefully gathered and held against the ravages of time.

But he has the look of someone who's never asked to tell any of them.

this is the part where i start making no sense during a conversation

 journal, talatu, writing life  6 Responses »
Jan 162009
 

A productive day on the short story today; I finally, after days of false starts, feel like I'm getting somewhere. (Did I mention I think outlining in advance is much more efficient? I did, didn't I? Although, to be fair to my poor beleaguered brain, this story is not entirely without (my kind of) outline. I know the characters, and their motivations, and I know the arc of the story. It just wasn't flowing.)

I've hit the end of the first third, and this is the dangerous time. This is the time when the world-building starts to reinforce itself and remind me I need to actually include it in the story, not just in my head. The characters start doing things which remind me I haven't foreshadowed that particular motivation yet, oops. The plot starts to hang on a few threads I'd meant to set up, honestly, I knew I meant to, I just got sidetracked.

Do you see the danger? This is the point in the story when I want to go back and start revising. And I am not allowed to, on pain of never finishing a story death.

This is the point where I start racing, wanting to get to the end so I can revise, and simultaneously I start toying with the idea of just tweaking this paragraph, just this section, just this whole manuscript so far. Because I hate the idea of the start of the story being broken, and not matching the ending, and what if I do forget the changes I need to incorporate, even though I've just taken the time to write myself a copious note in the margin?1 I've even toyed with the idea of letting myself write two drafts of this story simultaneously, writing the first draft and then, as a reward once I'd hit the day's quota, opening a fresh copy and revising as I go.2

Also, I am really, really tempted to name this story after the lyrics in a Cyndi Lauper song. That would be wrong, wouldn't it? It could also be expensive, which would definitely make it wrong.3

  1. This is not entirely an irrational fear. I've written myself some very strange notes in the margin in my time. I swear I thought they all made sense at the time, but that does not always mean they make sense on the second pass. At least short stories generally have less time between passes, so there's more chance I'll remember. [↩]
  2. Writers really is nuts. Who would think that's a reward? [↩]
  3. But I still wanna. [↩]
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