reading, writing and representation
Feb. 28th, 2006 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schemingreaderThis is the last week my whole family is at home together before my husband starts his new job. I am feeling kind of paralyzed. I don't have childcare set up for next week, not even a babysitter to go to psychotherapy. I'm trying to accomplish a little bit at a time, but I tend to wander around wondering what I should do first.
For the most part this has not extended to my writing, though I did find trying to write two chapters of two different fics a bit intimidating. Now I am working on finishing chapter four of The Heart's Obligations. I have written about 6,000 words of the chapter. Most of those chapters are around 10K words.
My problem is always the same one I have in real life: making decisions about what the characters should do. Even though I have a lot more control over the fictional world of my characters than over the real world of my own decisions, I get bogged down. I want to characterize them, giving away the little tidbits I've discovered. It's as though they were shy people I knew in real life, people I drew out and learned about with my seductively friendly wiles.
My son is in love with maps. In order to keep him away from my husband's maps (which he still needs) I have given him some of my old maps of European cities. He is currently cooing over a map of Amsterdam, noticing the letters and numbers on the borders of the maps. He's making up a whole narrative based on the maps.
We have been making mp3 mixes with iTunes. I am sorry that I forgot how to use the file compression software with the playlists, but I'll put some of them up, maybe tomorrow. We made one mix that the three year old gave the title "Songs for Smooching People." I had you all in mind as we selected the songs. Yesterday we made a rainbow compilation: I searched for all the songs with color words in the titles. Of course "blue" and "blues" comes up the most.
Two things occurred to me about this. One is that all representation is inherently exciting. The process of looking at pictures, or of playing with dolls or building sets, has a lot in common with the decoding of written stories. Maps are exciting because they represent territory, even if you can't see the territory when you look at the map. Sheet music excites me, though my sight reading skills are nearly gone. My son likes to look at playlists, they represent pleasure of the highest order for him. "We made it togedder!" he chirps.
That brings me to my second piece, which is that all creating is a process of editing, of selecting and rejecting. When you cook, you separate the vegetables from their peelings. You pick the ingredients to put them together. Every story is the sum of all the representations in your head (both words and images) that come of your real life experience and of the stories you've read.
Which is why reading a lot of other books doesn't stop people from wanting to write their own stories.
For the most part this has not extended to my writing, though I did find trying to write two chapters of two different fics a bit intimidating. Now I am working on finishing chapter four of The Heart's Obligations. I have written about 6,000 words of the chapter. Most of those chapters are around 10K words.
My problem is always the same one I have in real life: making decisions about what the characters should do. Even though I have a lot more control over the fictional world of my characters than over the real world of my own decisions, I get bogged down. I want to characterize them, giving away the little tidbits I've discovered. It's as though they were shy people I knew in real life, people I drew out and learned about with my seductively friendly wiles.
My son is in love with maps. In order to keep him away from my husband's maps (which he still needs) I have given him some of my old maps of European cities. He is currently cooing over a map of Amsterdam, noticing the letters and numbers on the borders of the maps. He's making up a whole narrative based on the maps.
We have been making mp3 mixes with iTunes. I am sorry that I forgot how to use the file compression software with the playlists, but I'll put some of them up, maybe tomorrow. We made one mix that the three year old gave the title "Songs for Smooching People." I had you all in mind as we selected the songs. Yesterday we made a rainbow compilation: I searched for all the songs with color words in the titles. Of course "blue" and "blues" comes up the most.
Two things occurred to me about this. One is that all representation is inherently exciting. The process of looking at pictures, or of playing with dolls or building sets, has a lot in common with the decoding of written stories. Maps are exciting because they represent territory, even if you can't see the territory when you look at the map. Sheet music excites me, though my sight reading skills are nearly gone. My son likes to look at playlists, they represent pleasure of the highest order for him. "We made it togedder!" he chirps.
That brings me to my second piece, which is that all creating is a process of editing, of selecting and rejecting. When you cook, you separate the vegetables from their peelings. You pick the ingredients to put them together. Every story is the sum of all the representations in your head (both words and images) that come of your real life experience and of the stories you've read.
Which is why reading a lot of other books doesn't stop people from wanting to write their own stories.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 10:10 pm (UTC)The same goes for sculpturing; the artists often the process as carving *away* the bits of stone or wood that don't belong to the statue. It's more about removing than about adding.
You start with the world and end with your words. And at the same time, the world grows, because now it's the old world plus your words. Like in those pictures which have a picture of the picture of the picture (and so forth) included.
So through removing, you are also adding, because you create something new. Isn't this crazy enough to love it?
Or maybe the craziness is all mine? *blushes*
no subject
Date: 2006-02-28 10:31 pm (UTC)I don't think my writing is much like that right now. I don't have the heart to chisel away at things. But I have seen that as a metaphor for writing in the past.
Even arranging the elements is creative, and that always involves selection. I think until you brought up the sculpture metaphor I was thinking "oh yeah, modernist pastiche" (like the picture within the picture of itself) but it's true that other modes of creation really work on that principle.
Further, and this is why this discussion belonged in the context of my real life, I have a lot of trouble sorting things and deciding what to discard. I chose the cooking metaphor because I'm not afraid to peel a broccoli stalk, I know which parts of the stalk are easy to eat and which are too tough and aren't worth putting in the steamer. If only writing was that simple to me.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-01 12:09 am (UTC)With real life in general, making a decision is strange. Apparently, there is no reader to judge the result. :-) After school, when I was about to start university, I was tremendously stressed by the thought of having to choose. I feared that if I'd choose A, B would never be an option anymore. I tried to do the sensible thing, or at least to choose not the most heartfelt, but "unwise" option.
Now, I see things differently. I think (from experience) that the things that are really important will always come back to me one way or another. To limit myself to a certain field will allow me to go deep. Then, after a while, I can lift my head again and look for another aspect to incorporate into the picture. The fear of making the wrong decision has died down, which is good. Maybe this sounds naive, but I kind of feel/know that things will turn out to be good for me.
I still feel that fear on particular occasions, though, like making a job decision or something which is of similar importance. But even then, it has lost some of its power. Hey, when I'm 90 years old, I will be most fearless woman of all. ;-)
I like your cooking metaphor. If you wait too long with the broccoli, it will probably eat you instead of the other way round.
*has seen too much of Little Shop of Horrors*
Good luck with your writing! :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-01 12:49 am (UTC)busaikko is constantly editing out this kind of thing--if I sat you down and asked you all kinds of random questions (What was Snape's relationship to his mother? Where did Remus go those Lost Years? Can Snape ride a bicycle?) I'll bet you could answer and even come up with anecdotes. It's like an artesian well....
When you cook, you separate the vegetables from their peelings
Hmmm. busaikko never peels (well, except for daikon). Perhaps that explains my lax discipline with writing....
How's it going on the babysitter front? Do you have a child-care coop in your neighbourhood or synagogue? They can be good for getting nice people (=other mums) to watch kids for an hour or two.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-01 01:22 am (UTC)I don't peel everything. I only peel some things. I am selective about it! I am even decisive about it. I know which dishes need a peeled potato and which need the peels on. I don't believe that your decision not to peel is a sign of laxness. It's an aesthetic decision.
Your writing looks like you are pretty liberal with the peeler, or chisel, or whatever that tool is that chips al the dross.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-01 01:56 am (UTC)Oh, the stuff that gets binned with my notebooks, you wouldn't believe! (suppose that's the peeling, then. Hmm. All those vitamins, going to waste)
* dons 'Queen of the Back
roomStory' crown *no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 04:35 am (UTC)http://community.livejournal.com/lupin_snape/550138.html
Um, I tried working on that a bit this evening. I wrote about 3 or 4 paragraphs. Big whoop. um, you said you might be able to beta? I am not sure what that entails. I might need more of a babysitter/handholderpossible ghostwriter. I am really not clued in.
advice? please? Thanks so much :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 05:14 am (UTC)"Oh yeah I'll
tell you something
I think you'll understand
when I
say that something
I wanna hold your HAAAAAAND!"
Just send it on over. Microsoft Word is fine.
Also--three or four paragraphs IS a big deal, if you are a sort of perfectionist poet type.