Posted!

I've been in the throes of creative inspiration these past few days, and so have neglected to mention that Disciple's Path is now posted on The Forum. It's strange to see one of my stories posted somewhere. There's my name up top, and those are the words I wrote... it makes me giggle with glee.

Who's in Charge Here?

Sometimes I wonder just how much control I have over these stories of mine.

No, I don't think they can do things completely on their own, but they do seem to direct themselves sometimes, and in strange ways. For instance, my 2YN. I had a very hard time figuring out where it was going to take place. My first idea for a location made no sense to me; I had no idea why I had chosen that particular location. As I've said before, I also had trouble naming the characters in this book. I had no idea what my main character would be called, until it hit me one day - my first location choice wasn't where the book was going to take place; it was my main character's name, and it fit perfectly.

Then, today, I realized why my character looks the way she does. Mind you, I figured out her appearance weeks ago, and figured out the reasons for it (one location-related, one history-related) just the other day - and until today, had no idea that these things were at all connected to her appearance.

Yes, I create these stories. But they also create themselves.

Writers' Group

Today I went to a meeting of a local writers' group. I only recently found out about the group's existence, and I thought I'd try it out. I had a good time, as it turned out. The group was informal, and everyone there seemed friendly. For a lot of the time, we just chatted about writing in general - the trials of query letters, those times when the story just flows, and how if we had any sense we'd just give this whole thing up. That sort of thing. It's nice being able to talk to other writers; I'm solitary by nature, but I also like knowing that other people have the same experiences that I do. When I talked about how the story I had brought to share had completely mutated from what it was originally supposed to be, and how when I had sat down to write it the story had taken control, they all knew just what I was talking about.

The story I brought was "Lingua Franca," a short story I wrote a month or two ago. It's a dark reflective story about death. I suspect the others in the group weren't expecting something like that. I don't give off that kind of vibe. I've been told I radiate innocence. I seem like the person who should be writing stories about rainbows and kittens. My writing is darker than I am. I'm not sure my writing is the way it is, and sometimes I feel guilty for it - what kind of a person am I to write about all this death and oppression? But these are the stories that call to me.

Anyway, everyone was impressed with the story. Nobody seemed to think there was a problem with the lack of action or the absence of a specific protagonist. That reassured me; I like it the way it is, but I was afraid that people with a more objective viewpoint would say it didn't work. They all seemed to like it, though.

I wonder if I could find a suitable market for this story. It would be a hard one to place, I think. But I like it a lot, and I've discovered that it can also appeal to people who aren't me and who don't know me. This heartens me.

Sinner

The sin quiz, courtesy of All Kinds of Writing:

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Low
Lust:	Very Low
Pride:	High

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

Wikipedia Meme

(Got this from tambo)

Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

Events:
- In ancient Greece, the first day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, during which the sacred objects were brought from Eleusis to Athens.
- 1752 - The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days.
- On December 1, 1969, September 14th is drawn as the first birthdate in the U.S. draft during the Vietnam War. (Okay, I suppose this didn't actually happen on my birthday, but it does involve it... Come on, humor me. My birthday is seriously lacking in interesting events.)

Births: (wow, hardly anybody interesting was born on my birthday)
1486 - Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, German alchemist
1849 - Ivan Pavlov, Russian scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Deaths:
775 - Constantine V, Byzantine Emperor

Book vs. Author

I remember awhile ago when a lot of people were mad because they found out that Orson Scott Card was vehemently against homosexuality. They felt betrayed, because his books had touched them and they were now finding out that his views were, in reality, quite different from their own. I was surprised myself to find out Card's views, but when I thought about it, I realized it didn't, and shouldn't, matter.

I can like an author's books without agreeing with, or even liking, the author as a person. For me, the books stand on their own. It can be strange to find out that an author I love believes things very different from what I believe, but I'll still read the books, and I'll still buy them, and I'll still like them. For instance, Orson Scott Card is against homosexuality, which I definitely am not. I still love his Ender books and his From her occasional political posts, Holly Lisle appears to be very much a Republican, which I definitely am not. I still love her books and am learning a lot from her in the worldbuilding course (and like her as a person, as well).

But it makes me wonder - how much distance should there be between the book and the author? If I write characters who are substantially different from me, or whose beliefs I don't agree with (and all good writers do at some point), will readers come to identify with those characters and then feel betrayed when they learn that I don't agree with the beliefs those characters hold and maybe don't even like the type of people that those characters are? And how much should I share about my personal life? How much can I share before I start alienating readers who want me to be like them? How much should a book stand apart from the author who wrote it?

Naive Writing

The phrase "naive physics" refers to people's untrained knowledge of the way the world works. For instance, people learn at an early age that when you drop something it's going to fall, even if they don't yet know why this happens. It's understanding based on common sense, rather than academic knowledge. And it works well, but it has limits.

I guess you could call my writing "naive writing." For the most part, I've been working purely on instinct. I know what to do, but I don't know the reasons for it. I don't think about it consciously, it just feels right. And it's worked well for me... but it has limits.

I'm at a point now where I'm trying to consciously learn all the things I've been unconsciously doing. As a part of this effort, I'm reading Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card, since it's so highly recommended. I'm learning some interesting things from it. For instance, the idea of the MICE Quotient. In this view, there are four types of stories - the Milieu story, which is dominated by the setting; the Idea story, which is dominated by a mystery; the Character story, which is dominated by a character's transformation; and the Event story, which is dominated by an event that disrupts the natural order. Thinking about this view in relation to my own stories, I discovered what may have gone wrong with Ascension (besides the fact that it was almost completely unplanned and that's not my natural way of working). It was a Character story, but in the absence of a coherent plot, it took on the structure of a Milieu story. The milieu, however, left a lot to be desired, because it wasn't supposed to be the main focus of the story.

It's interesting to consciously analyze things like that; it gives a different perspective, a useful one. And I'm not losing my instinctive knowledge, everything I've absorbed from many years of reading and writing; I'm just adding to it.

Ambition

It used to be, I didn't think about publication. Every so often I'd think about how it would be nice, but it was nothing more than an afterthought. What really mattered was the writing itself. And if I ever did get my books published, I thought, I wanted them to be read, but I didn't want to be as well-known as, say, Stephen King. That would only get in the way.

But over the past couple of years, something has changed.

Some things haven't changed. The most important part is still the writing itself. That's what really matters. If today I found out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nobody would ever publish a single one of my books, I'd write them anyway. I'd do it because it's what I love to do. It feeds my soul. What better reason is there?

But now I want to be published. I want a writing career. I want to be a well-known writer (though no matter how unknown I am, the mere fact of somebody wanting to publish a book of mine would be enough to send me into paroxysms of joy).

I'm not sure when the shift happened... but it has happened.

I've become something I never thought I would be.

I've become ambitious.

I Have News!

Guess what I found in my inbox yesterday morning?

An acceptance!

Yes, one of my short stories is going to be published. The story in question is "Disciple's Path," a story I wrote in 2004. It's going to be published on The Forum at the end of April.

When reading the email, I kept waiting for the part that would say, "...but we can't use this story." It never came. They actually want it. This is surreal to me.

I'm still all giddy.

Something I wrote is going to be published!

This amazes me.