Craftsmanship

Today's Mood: Benign. Today's Music: Nothing yet--though I'm in the mood for some jazz. Today's Writing: nothing yet--though I hope to work on IFFY for awhile. Today's Quote:

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself. -Truman Capote

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This summer I have been taking a watercolor painting class. I've dabbled with paints for a year or two, and sometimes things work. But on some paintings, I'll know something is wrong, isn't working, but I won't know why--and thus cannot fix it. My husband suggested I take a class. "Learn the techniques, and then you'll be more equipped to fix the paintings--or maybe won't even need to anymore."

One of the big things I have learned so far: with watercolors, it's all about layers. Layers and layers of paint. At first, you work fast--don't over think things. A light background wash gives you the general parameter of where things are. Lots of water. Then you start adding more color. More detail. Maybe the work goes slower, but things start to come into focus. (hopefully) The main focal point is the most detailed, usually the most vivid colors. You definitely don't want your background to overwhelm the important foreground (like my absolutely hideous chartreuse green on the last landscape I did.) Oh, and every now and again, take time to stand back and look at it from a distance. It helps you see things you didn't when you were all up close and personal.

The process is not so different than that of writing. On my last camping trip I finished reading Stephen King's book On Writing. His creative process is get it down fast with the doors closed, and then layers of revision (doors open--getting feedback). And at some point, a bit of distance. And there are different techniques, tools to put in your toolbox. How you use those tools is the craft of writing. How so you mix colors, how do you write dialog, how do you add shadows, how do you add depth to your characters.

I was worried that taking a class would make painting bland, mechanical instead of the gut-level play that I was doing. The interesting thing is that even when every person in class is working on the same still-life, each painting looks different. Everyone brings a unique approach to the painting. So yeah, we might all be applying the same tools and techniques--even the same process, and yet there is individuality in the way we use those tools and techniques.

I'm a prepared sort of gal (think control freak), so it fits that I like to have a lot of tools at my disposal. I like to know how to use them effectively as well. But I don't always like someone telling me what to use when and how. That part I like to figure out myself because that is the part that makes it my own. The teacher of the watercolor class told us at the start, "you will make mistakes, even the best artists do. What matters is if you know how to 'fix' them, how to plow through and make it work."

So how have you learned the craft of writing? Or at least what are some of your best lessons in craft since I don't suppose the learning is ever really done. Which tool do you consider one of your most well-used?

Oh blessed routine!

Today's Mood: Tired. Today's Music: Matchbox Twenty--All your reasons. Today's Writing: Black Dragon--chapter 2. Today's Quote:

"Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other
worlds." -Victor Null

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The only way I got out of bed this morning was by grabbing the scruff of my neck with both hands and dragging myself out from under the covers. I can't believe how dark it is at 5:30 a.m.! But writing every day makes the dark hours and loss of sleep worth it.

My office smells of orange blossoms and paper. I drink my cappuccino, turn on my music, get out my computer and then I'm gone. Gone into the dank basement room of Sera the dragon fighter. Gone into a world of darkness, soul-searing pain, and blood. Dreams and visions of blood.

It's always a bit of a shock when the lights go on in the main library, and it is time for me to go back to my world of books, technology, kids, and teachers. But I'm happy. The revision is going slow but I think good--although the backlash of thoughts/cravings/emotions is quite unsettling. Thought I put all that behind me many, many years ago. Never knew how long habits could hang around!

Oh how I love writing! Anyone else going to the Fall Glen Lake Retreat? How about entering the PW art show? I (foolishly) said I would and now I'm stressing because I don't have anything good enough to put in an art show. Silly, silly me.

Anyone reading anything interesting? I'm over halfway through The Shack. Now that's a book that makes you think! And I consumed Breaking Dawn in one gulp (which included very little sleep!). Happy writing!

Limited Perspective

Today's Mood: Contemplative. Today's Music: The Muse -Black Holes and Revelations. Today's Writing: a poem about perspective. Today's Quote:

There can never be too many stories. -Gail Carson Levine in Writing Magic.

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Conference week is almost over. I think I am the only one in the building this morning. I was definitely the only one in the parking lot anyway. What a week! Snow, snow, snow. But oh so lovely! I've been shoveling every day, and it is so beautiful--quiet, white, full of mystery and otherworldliness.

I've also been spending a lot of time painting sets for the upcoming school play. It is a bit ironic because I had just started working on another graphic illustration for Black Dragon and was having a bitch of a time getting the perspective right. So then my co-director asked if I'd help on the sets. And what's the big problem? Perspective. My husband finally suggested that I order a few books (yes, HE suggested it! I must have seemed in a bad way because our house is overflowing with my books!) on drawing and perspective. They haven't come yet, but I've been pushing forward anyway with a book called Mastering Perspective for Beginners (from the library--what great places libraries are!).

It is exciting and eye-opening to me to learn all this stuff. Not that I'd take drawing or painting over writing, but it has changed the way I look at things. Yesterday (driving home very slowly in all this snow) I was musing on my life. I know, I think too much. But this was good--or at least, not bad. I was thinking about how, given my viewpoint, things like politics and the economy and the war in Iraq can seem so... overwhelming, huge, scary, horrible.... But if one were to change the viewpoint and stretch the vanishing lines (parallel lines that intersect at some point--sometimes outside the picture) to infinite, then the whole picture changes. My life, the majority of the picture according to my viewpoint, becomes nothing but a dab of paint in the whole of an incredible masterpiece. Only someone with a viewpoint of eternity could see what part it plays in the whole.

Okay, so I don't know if any of that made any sense, but maybe, just maybe it changed my perspective just a little. I'm crazy busy with this play and new writing class I'm co-teaching, but sometimes it's good to be stretched. (hurts a little though--although, come to think of it, that might be all the shoveling!)

Looking forward to Khardomah and a few large chunks of writing time!

Ponderings

Today's Mood: Anticipation. Today's Music: Loreena McKinnet. Today's Writing: Mary Monologue II. Today's Quote:

"In fact, I feel--maybe I'm crazy--that the solution to all my problems is to write my way, if not out of them, then through them." -David Bradley in Letters to a Fiction Writer.

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This morning I'm pondering writing and art and the artist's way of viewing the world. This line of thought is really the braiding of several other strands of wonder. I re-reading The King of Attolia (possibly one of the best books I have ever read! It is by Megan Whalen Turner, and it is a young adult book, but the complexity of plot and character make it worth any one's time) and wondered how she came up with the idea and how she managed to keep the plot clear and yet hidden until it is slowly brought to light through the course of the story.

Another thread of thought comes from making lesson plans for a creative writing class at school. The first lesson is about journals and how the best way to become a better writer is to write--as much as possible, whenever you get a chance, every day. I was looking through my journals to find something I can make into an overhead transparency and share with a bunch of 6th grade boys and girls. It's harder than I thought it would be, but also more interesting than I thought. My journals (the many that I have) start to show a glimpse of a work in progress--me. Write about what you know; or is it, write so that you will know? All in all it convinced me to keep writing in my journal every day, no matter what, even if I have nothing profound to say. Because the mundane just might be more profound anyway.

The final piece of the braid comes from spending most of the day Saturday trying to draw a picture of my daughter. I've drawn pictures of my characters, and thought maybe I should take the time to draw someone real and dear. Well, I picked a pose that was much more difficult than I realized. Her head is cocked sideways and down and is a b-- to draw. I see the shape of the head--but I don't. I see the line and the way it angles and curves--but I don't. Or at least, I don't in the sense of being able to reproduce it.

So, braid all these thoughts together and what do I get? Art is more than just a way of seeing; it is a way of re-producing what you see. And in the re-producing, you make something new. Does this make sense? I'm not sure. I'm pondering as I write, as I draw, as I view the world around me. Maybe it all has to do with another thread from the weekend--a conversation with my oldest sister, who is the proud (and harried) mother of a 5 year old and 2 1/2 year old twins. She was lamenting the lack of time to create. After I got off the phone, I talked with my husband about that drive to create something, whether it be a fabulous pie, or a fishing lure, or a picture, or a quilt, or a snowman... He thought that is has to do with the desire to leave behind some evidence of your existence. That may be. I tend to think it goes even deeper than that; I think the desire to create something is an innate part of who we are as human beings--or, if you will, how we were created to be. Art (in the very broad sense of the word) is a way of becoming who we are meant to be.

Then again, it could be that I haven't had enough coffee and the day is young and I am full of bullshit--like most writers are. What do you think?