Man that's a clever title! Also self-explanatory, so as promised on Tuesday, here are some of the things I discovered that I could use whilst on my adventures in Europe, and where I found them:
Rome
1. A cultural sense that everything must fall someday for my dwarves.
2. A sense that everything will last forever for some of my humans.
3. A culture that builds religious buildings that show their own glory, rather than that of their God, for my elves.
4. The realization that I should really draw maps of my cities, even if only for my own benefit
5. Fruit trees (to be discussed in a later blog post)
Paris
1. The realization that some beauty simply cannot be captured in photos, and even words will struggle with it.
Germany
1. Some windows for a house in my novel
Prague
1. Cliffs covered in yellow flowers--don't know where they'll go, but they'll fit somewhere.
Stockholm
1. (While looking out the window of the plane as it took off) A good description for the River of Souls that's so important to my book.
2. The realization that I need to go on a tallship cruise
It doesn't seem like a lot for three weeks, especially what with so much being front-loaded in Rome, but on the whole I still came away feeling like I got a lot out of it---especially given all the distractions I was dealing with, and the things I did get were very valuable.
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Arrogance
Alright, this is one of those "stop-the-presses-I-need-to-speak" moments, so I'll get back to the things I learned on my travels tomorrow.
While doing my daily blog reading, I came across one of my favorite blogs in which the blogger went to iUniverse (apparently a vanity publisher) and picked out some particularly bad books to laugh at. To be fair, most of them looked pretty bad. Like, spelling and grammar errors on the cover bad. The blogger came up with some subtitles for them that were funny, it was a funny post and I felt a bit bad for the people who had spent their money on vanity publishing only to be laughed at.
Then I opened up the comments section, intending to post something along the lines of "I feel bad for these people." What I found was grown-up, educated adults acting like the 12-14 year olds whose comments I have to see scrolling down the annoying sidebar chat features on every website that lets you watch Anime. "I feel bad for those people" is arrogant enough. Some of the things I read in there made me cringe with their self-righteousness. I won't reproduce them here, but suffice to say they were unashamedly mocking enough to make me quite sad.
As people in the know, writers who understand the publishing process and can write grammatically correct, if not always good, prose, are we really that much better than those who don't and can't? There was a point in every writer's life when they wrote a bad story full of mistakes and loved it, even if that time was as a child. There was a time when a stupid title sounded good to them, and they didn't understand why their book wouldn't sell, and they thought they were a much better writer than they were (most people, I think, remain in this boat--even some of the best authors).
When did we forget the lesson learned in grade school that those who mock others tend to do so to cover up their own insecurities? Has the grind of writing, criticism, revision, and rejection driven the humanity out of the writers of the world? Or have we simply wrapped ourselves in our painfully gained knowledge like a cloak, from the safe confines of which we can hurl sticks and stones at those without one that matches it?
While doing my daily blog reading, I came across one of my favorite blogs in which the blogger went to iUniverse (apparently a vanity publisher) and picked out some particularly bad books to laugh at. To be fair, most of them looked pretty bad. Like, spelling and grammar errors on the cover bad. The blogger came up with some subtitles for them that were funny, it was a funny post and I felt a bit bad for the people who had spent their money on vanity publishing only to be laughed at.
Then I opened up the comments section, intending to post something along the lines of "I feel bad for these people." What I found was grown-up, educated adults acting like the 12-14 year olds whose comments I have to see scrolling down the annoying sidebar chat features on every website that lets you watch Anime. "I feel bad for those people" is arrogant enough. Some of the things I read in there made me cringe with their self-righteousness. I won't reproduce them here, but suffice to say they were unashamedly mocking enough to make me quite sad.
As people in the know, writers who understand the publishing process and can write grammatically correct, if not always good, prose, are we really that much better than those who don't and can't? There was a point in every writer's life when they wrote a bad story full of mistakes and loved it, even if that time was as a child. There was a time when a stupid title sounded good to them, and they didn't understand why their book wouldn't sell, and they thought they were a much better writer than they were (most people, I think, remain in this boat--even some of the best authors).
When did we forget the lesson learned in grade school that those who mock others tend to do so to cover up their own insecurities? Has the grind of writing, criticism, revision, and rejection driven the humanity out of the writers of the world? Or have we simply wrapped ourselves in our painfully gained knowledge like a cloak, from the safe confines of which we can hurl sticks and stones at those without one that matches it?
Monday, 12 May 2008
Not Everything Has a Place
This is the next in my series of "things I learned whilst traveling" posts. Hopefully these will fill the space between now and the time I start my internship in New York City (June) quite nicely, with a few spur-of-the-moment posts likely to spring up.
One of the things that jumped out at me while I was on my three week sojourn through Europe was that not everything I saw would fit into my novel. And I don't just mean "everythings" like the Paris metro or the pizza place I went to in Rome, I mean things that seem fitted to high fantasy like roman columns, fountains, emerald green grottoes, big ruined castles, and a surprising amount of medieval weapons and armor that just didn't look right. One thing that I found particularly disappointing was to not be able to find a culture in my world that was suited to having close animal companions (this set off by the Germans and their love for their dogs).
That surprised me. I guess I've had such good luck at times (Cumbria, for example), that I assumed that everything that seemed relevant would be. On the other hand, I'm also glad to discover that I'm a discerning enough writer to leave out things that clearly don't fit. I wouldn't want my novel to become a patchwork of cool-looking stuff I'd seen lately, which, in retrospect, is a distinct risk when you're actively looking for material for your writing.
On the whole I did get a lot of good material for my book, however, and I'm also smart enough to know that no experience is a useless experience when it comes to writing. I don't plan to leave the world of Guedin (where my novel takes place) for the first ten years or so of my career, but where I'll go after that I have no idea...and maybe it will have big green grottoes, ruined castles, and dog-loving cultures.
I'll write more tomorrow about some of the things I did find, and where I found them.
One of the things that jumped out at me while I was on my three week sojourn through Europe was that not everything I saw would fit into my novel. And I don't just mean "everythings" like the Paris metro or the pizza place I went to in Rome, I mean things that seem fitted to high fantasy like roman columns, fountains, emerald green grottoes, big ruined castles, and a surprising amount of medieval weapons and armor that just didn't look right. One thing that I found particularly disappointing was to not be able to find a culture in my world that was suited to having close animal companions (this set off by the Germans and their love for their dogs).
That surprised me. I guess I've had such good luck at times (Cumbria, for example), that I assumed that everything that seemed relevant would be. On the other hand, I'm also glad to discover that I'm a discerning enough writer to leave out things that clearly don't fit. I wouldn't want my novel to become a patchwork of cool-looking stuff I'd seen lately, which, in retrospect, is a distinct risk when you're actively looking for material for your writing.
On the whole I did get a lot of good material for my book, however, and I'm also smart enough to know that no experience is a useless experience when it comes to writing. I don't plan to leave the world of Guedin (where my novel takes place) for the first ten years or so of my career, but where I'll go after that I have no idea...and maybe it will have big green grottoes, ruined castles, and dog-loving cultures.
I'll write more tomorrow about some of the things I did find, and where I found them.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Backstory
So today, in addition to doing some revisions, I finally sat down to hash out the backstory to my dwarves, which has been marinating in my mind for a few months now. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It isn't quite as well-developed as that of the humans, but it has just as many seeds for great stories, which is half of what backstory is all about, in my mind.
I discovered after I finished it, however, that it has very little bearing on the events of my novel. The setting of the chapters that take place in the dwarflands has changed a bit, as has the character Len (well, not his character so much as his place in the world. Those of you who've read past drafts will scratch your heads and think "Was he really...?" when you read the finished version. The answer is no, he wasn't), but there are no huge changes to be made.
In the end I suppose that's good, and is yet another indicator that my novel really is getting close to finished, but it makes me feel a bit silly putting so much thought into something that has such a small immediate impact, even though I know it's important (the backstory does have much more far-reaching implications for book two, for instance).
In other news, I look at the sidebar of the blog and cringe. Have I really only posted once in all of May? Ouch. All I can say is that I promise to do better in the future, which shouldn't hold any more trips and internet interruptions, and that my goal is to have a solid 25-28 posts in June. We'll see how I do.
I discovered after I finished it, however, that it has very little bearing on the events of my novel. The setting of the chapters that take place in the dwarflands has changed a bit, as has the character Len (well, not his character so much as his place in the world. Those of you who've read past drafts will scratch your heads and think "Was he really...?" when you read the finished version. The answer is no, he wasn't), but there are no huge changes to be made.
In the end I suppose that's good, and is yet another indicator that my novel really is getting close to finished, but it makes me feel a bit silly putting so much thought into something that has such a small immediate impact, even though I know it's important (the backstory does have much more far-reaching implications for book two, for instance).
In other news, I look at the sidebar of the blog and cringe. Have I really only posted once in all of May? Ouch. All I can say is that I promise to do better in the future, which shouldn't hold any more trips and internet interruptions, and that my goal is to have a solid 25-28 posts in June. We'll see how I do.
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Distractions
Apologies again for not writing for so long, but I've been up in Scotland (the Orkney Isles, specifically, very cool place) and haven't had internet access. Luckily for the blog (not so much for me), the last of my travels is coming up tomorrow. I spend a few days in Majorca in the Mediterranean (because, of course, I needed to research a warm water port for my book ;-p), and then I'm done! Which means frequent blogging and no more vacations for who knows how long while I restore my depleted bank account.
But my life story aside, I thought I'd take this time to discuss distractions, and how they can creep up on you without you noticing, especially while traveling.
This was a lesson learned during my 3-week sojourn to Europe, during which I had planned to learn all kinds of things from the various places I visited. Initially, I stuck pretty well to my plan. My journal from the first week or so is filled with little notes of things to include in my books. This, of course, was during the easiest part of my journey, while I was still well-rested and had local acquaintances to stay with and usher me around the various places I was visiting.
The second half of my trip, however, was strangely devoid of inspiration. I blame most of this on various distractions I ran into--everything from struggling to speak French all day to exhaustion to homesickness. Scotland was much the same way, I was either so busy or so exhausted from traveling all day the whole time that I didn't find much time to sit and ponder how I could use what I was seeing in my work, other than a few brief mental snapshots of the cold-water northern ports in the Orkneys (which were, naturally, invaluable).
So I guess my point is that, for me at any rate, these sort of travel distractions crept up on me by surprise, and I think because I wasn't prepared for them, or at any rate wasn't prepared to sacrifice the time and goodwill of my traveling companions necessary to properly combat them, I lost out on a lot of valuable inspiration. A thing to watch for, I guess, if you're traveling with the intent of picking up material for your writing.
But my life story aside, I thought I'd take this time to discuss distractions, and how they can creep up on you without you noticing, especially while traveling.
This was a lesson learned during my 3-week sojourn to Europe, during which I had planned to learn all kinds of things from the various places I visited. Initially, I stuck pretty well to my plan. My journal from the first week or so is filled with little notes of things to include in my books. This, of course, was during the easiest part of my journey, while I was still well-rested and had local acquaintances to stay with and usher me around the various places I was visiting.
The second half of my trip, however, was strangely devoid of inspiration. I blame most of this on various distractions I ran into--everything from struggling to speak French all day to exhaustion to homesickness. Scotland was much the same way, I was either so busy or so exhausted from traveling all day the whole time that I didn't find much time to sit and ponder how I could use what I was seeing in my work, other than a few brief mental snapshots of the cold-water northern ports in the Orkneys (which were, naturally, invaluable).
So I guess my point is that, for me at any rate, these sort of travel distractions crept up on me by surprise, and I think because I wasn't prepared for them, or at any rate wasn't prepared to sacrifice the time and goodwill of my traveling companions necessary to properly combat them, I lost out on a lot of valuable inspiration. A thing to watch for, I guess, if you're traveling with the intent of picking up material for your writing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
