Funky Definitions

A funky member of Parliament. The funkiest, in fact.

(written on my tablet during downtime, please excuse typos) 

We sit in Supreme Court, waiting... There is lots of waiting. It is awfully exhausting to sit around and do nothing.

My table mate and I joke and chat casually, but mostly we read in between hearing cases (sorry, no details allowed).

I am doing some research until the very personification of my villain walks into the courtroom or emerges fully formed into my head.

Meanwhile, I do research and have found an interesting tidbit.

I have always been curious about the nomenclature used when classifying groups of animals. Animal collective nouns are funny sometimes and I wonder what immigrants, learning the English language as adults make of it -- assuming they get this far in their language immersion.

I am not entirely sure native speakers are particularly familiar with these congregations either, and wonder if the knowledge of such things has fallen to the wayside when schools determine curricula to save or discard in the age of test scores ruling the education game.

Today I've learned that a group of ravens may be called a congress, conspiracy, parliament or unkindness. That the first and the third may be synonymous with the second and last nouns fills me with glee.

At the same time, I've learned that the collective noun for crows may be horde, hover, murder, muster or parcel. Here you find five words that wouldn't seem to have antyhing in common, given the immediate definition that comes to mind for each.

Further research indicates that some nouns are repeated and apply to more than one grouping of animals. Baboons form a congress; owls and rooks form parliaments; peacoks are also known as musters; and, gnats, hamsters, mice, and wolves are called hordes.

Details of where these names originated or why they stuck are a mystery to me, but endlessly entertaining in their potential for obscure puns. Although I wonder if calling Congress "baboons in D.C." won't confuse the issue (as well as be offensive to baboons in general).

The other consideration is whether to freely use this knowledge in my writing. I write for my own amusement and pride myself in the assertion that my readers are smart folks (and a few smartasses, you know who you are!).

One wants the meaning to be understood, and yet it has always been clear to me that once written, the message becomes whatever the reader ascribes to the words.

Speak To Me, Daemon

Magic Stilettos: I am in a sort of limbo that isn't as deep as it sounds.

I have a character who has suggested himself to be quite important. The moment he reared his monstrous head from the darkness, he told me what he represented, what he'd do and why he was the story, not "that other little story" I'd been peddling...

I know some of what happens, but not all of it. I know what he looks like, in jest. I know how he moves. I even understand how he operates.

The problem is that I do not know what he sounds like. I need a voice. I cannot know who he is unless I know his voice. I need to hear him in my head. He needs to tell me his story and I cannot commit to it until he comes to me and gives me the details in all their slithering glory.

I told a friend that I needed a caricature of a man and I was looking forward to my court adventure for this. He asked if I needed a real person to plant the seed and that is exactly it!

I can write some things on my own, but I find that the easiest passages to put down are those narrated by a character. But it needs to sound right. It needs to sound true.

We were talking about my writing process and how I wanted to write some of it longhand and how it simply awakens a different vibe. And I mentioned using voice memos. If I only write or type, and I do not vocalize, I just spend entirely too long in my head and that is not a good idea. I need to hear it too! 

There is a musicality to words strung together properly. It has to match the feel of it, the context, the hidden meaning. It has to resonate.

But in order for the words to resonate (literally) the characters need to speak their truth in their own voices. A plot idea may be incredibly sexy but it doesn't sprout wings and fly until one of the characters makes it his or her story and tells it with all the love, joy, hatred or fear it requires to move you. That is when you write, when you are moved.

And this is why I am not too worried about letting the story float in limbo until a voice emerges that owns the story to tell. If I cannot be moved to write it, and force it, I am certain you cannot be moved to read it. That's a mockery of both our time and I will try not to ever do that.

Right now, I am not sure if he is slow to emerge or if he is already in my head and is just toying with me because it's part of the way he seduces its victims. One way or another, this will be an adventure!

Artist Interrupted Plans Sweet Revenge

Keep reading, you'll find the relevant link.

The US Constitution allows that “[N]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...”

The Constitution of New York State has a similar statute.

This is a tool in the arsenal of our Justice system and I appreciate that ideal that our system was conceived to have checks and balances to at least try to protect the rights of those involved in it. It fails occasionally, but it is generally a relatively fair system.

The Grand Jury meets in secret and I break no rules in disclosing that soon I will be a part of its proceedings. I cannot blog about it once it gets going and, to tell the truth, I am not really looking forward to it.

It is my civic duty and I accept it, but it also interrupts my job search and I can't postpone it again. This annoys me more than I can say. It's frustrating, especially because I saw some progress in terms of good prospects...

Ideally, it would make for great observations what with the parade of characters that come into my narrow field of vision. A good writer would internalize all of it and incorporate them discretely into future works.

Certainly, the surroundings and the circumstances make for a hyperspecific people-watching experience and, if I am lucky, a plethora of raw and colorful archetypes to populate my stories.

I have been amusing myself with the idea of creating character studies of fictional characters, comic book types, based on the dregs of society (from lawyers, to crime victims, to the unethical underbelly of our metropolis).

In my head it ends up being a sort of Dickensian dark comedy with Shakespearean overtones, but the reality will probably be more akin to amateur porn on grainy night vision goggles. Realistic but not as pretty as one would hope—because courtroom dramas are highly stylized and never even close to what it is like to be inside a courtroom.

Or, if you prefer, it might be more like a really bizarre puppet show as viewed through the eyes of a bad flashback. But that may be a jaded assessment owing to my frustration. Whatever!

I found this out the hard way when my cousin had me sit through a day at the bench. It was interesting to me, but nothing like the stuff people see on TV or film and certainly nothing like the courtroom of literature.

And yet, it seems to me that the whole thing lends itself quite well to the exaggerated noir found in graphic novels. Think on that... you interrupt the artist, even when she is idle, and she plots. Plots!

The “Read an Ebook” promotion at Smashwords is on right now! Visit my page and take advantage of the discounts and even some free titles for a limited time (through March 8).

Visiting the Realms of Fantasy

I was trying to organize my thoughts and in the process realized there was a character that suddenly appeared – no name, no face, no history – and he would change everything. Suddenly, yet slowly, he formed into a force to be reckoned...

The problem that I ran into was that I tried to write Magical Stilettos by the seat of my pants. I wanted to see how far I could take it if I just wrote and allowed it to develop as I wrote.

This is possible, but not with this story.

I need an outline. I need direction.

As I started to jot down ideas, it seemed clear that I was creating a mythology. The idea of working with prototypes became both interesting and more than a little intimidating. Of course, any work of fiction operates within its own mythology. But I am also dabbling in world building. It's getting complicated now!

I want to immerse myself in the creative process but I find too many distractions – worries and insecurities, the weight of this brutal winter taking its toll on my state of being, an unfocused mind, shiny objects – keep me from dedicating myself as I should.

A visit to the realms of fantasy is what is needed here. I have not been there in some time, but I remember enough to imagine a guided tour until I can dive in with unabashed abandon. 

I haven't written a chapter in weeks but I have notes that promise a good payoff when I do get started again.

The one problematic thing was one particular note, written in a sort of shorthand and with which I intended to release a character that screamed to be part of the story (and she has not even been hinted at yet). A couple of weeks later, I looked at the note and it stared back at me. “Prototype of happiness in gloom...”

It did three things:

1. it filled me with excitement
2. it filled me with dread
3. it focused me enough to solve the puzzle at hand.

It was exciting because it clearly opened some possibilities in character development and plot that I had not considered before. It filled me with dread because half of it made no sense. I had no idea what part of my own note meant!

Once I decided I needed to get back this moment and bring meaning to it, it wasn't so much a matter of reliving the moment when I wrote it as it was adding everything I had and surmising where all these loose ends were headed to conclude what I meant.

It may sound a little silly, but being able to focus – even if for short spurts – means the world because there will be more distractions coming up and I need to know I can work around them.

Right now, I want a full outline and at least two full characters before I start jury duty. I want to write as much as I can fit into the proceedings. It will be my life affirming act of defiance.

It seems to me that as justice is part of the story, it might be conducive to writing. Also, perhaps the criminal element might suggest an end game. I still don't know how the story ends. 

Still, progress is progress and I will take any bit that moves me forward. 

Magic is Back

Photo by Pedro J. Perez, used under Creative Commons license

It is so easy to fall behind when you are involved in creative projects. This is like a bad habit and should never be encouraged!

Magic Stilettos is a challenge because I allowed the silly notion that I could just write based on a flimsy idea and let the story come to me. That works sometimes, especially with short form fiction. But that is not always true.

Without direction, you always run the risk of getting lost and running into creative walls.

It's a good exercise to just write, but not if you have a specific end game. In fact, I may take part in a NaNoWriMo hangout this weekend where we simply write, long hand as an exercise.

The idea is to adhere to Natalie Goldberg's rules of writing practice. The Rules are relatively simple and something that I tend to do instinctively.

First you write by hand. Pen or pencil in hand, you keep the hand moving. It is a different experience than writing attached to a keyboard, it helps you access and exercise your brain differently.

You do not edit. You write. If you run out of things to write, you write, “OMG! I have run out of things to write,” until that sparks an internal dialog or a feeling, a setting, a distant memory and you write that.

You don't get to censor yourself or your writing, so the internal censor can go on vacation. If it wants to scream and holler, you tune it out like commercials during your favorite show. By extension, you are allowed to write the worst schlock in history. Quality is not the point, writing – the act of writing – is all that matters.

It is not important whether you may use any of the material produced during this exercise. That is not the point. I can tell you from experience that seeds of ideas can be born from the process, so don't discount it as New Age quackery.

I go into my exercise with the germ of an idea that came to me in that stage between sleep and waking, and it will be incorporated into the outline that I have already begun putting together to move the story forward. It is not at all what I intended when I began this project so it is a little scary and also incredibly exciting.

And that is why I write because it offers me a creative outlet and it opens this magnificent well of emotions to draw from and renew my soul! Plus it includes sexy demons. Sexy demons are always fun.

A New Year

Happy New Year!

It has been quite some time since I have updated the blog and this is one of the things I resolve to change in 2014.

I've been writing -- though admittedly in dribs -- to advance the story of The Magic Stilettos. But after a couple of bloated chapters, I realized that I'd taken a really bad turn and I need to rethink the direction it will all take. The good news is that I imagined a new, and exciting, conflict that I had not considered before.

The time has come to plan out my calendar for the coming year and start rolling out titles.

I have lots of reading and writing to do! I wish you all the same.

Whispers

At the end of June, I embarked in an adventure to pursue two professional certifications (CompTIA's A+ and Network+). I succeeded at both and am now a fully certified PC technician and networking information technology expert. So, if you need help in that area, feel free to contact me through the Amapola Press site.

In that time, I knew I would have to put my writing aside because my whole focus needed to be on studying and capturing these certifications.

My Muse understood my need to set her aside. She never feels abandoned, she asserts herself and while I commuted daily from Brooklyn to the South Bronx, it gave me glimpses of what was to come. And I dutifully took notes on my iPod so that I could document these ideas – I am no fool!

I saw scenes play out in my sleep deprived mind. I saw character faces develop and smile back at me. I heard their voices. I even heard opening lines to chapters that simply demanded to be heard because they were so perfect they willed themselves into existence!

It wasn't all motherboards and routers and operating systems. Sure, all that enveloped me, but underneath that frantic search for knowledge there was love and happiness and friendship and unconditional moral support and sexy, soothing voice in the distance that reminded me, “You are still a writer...”

So here we are, hours rather than days (in Protocol Data Unit parlance were are bits rather than frames away) from NaNoWriMo. A decision must be made. Do I participate this year? I am in deep job-search mode at the moment, but that does not exclude my creative drive. So yes! Yes, I will participate.

But how do I go? Do I write my story about life in the space station that uses the Bronx as inspiration for part of it (and it would be a fitting and poetic way to close out my experience)? Or do I succumb to the silliness, and a much needed mental break, of the magic stilettos?

I have almost two days to decide. Ah, but the excitement . . . it mounts! And I hear my Muse gently singing and calling me over. It's sexy and alluring. It's a whisper and nothing but an ethereal glimpse in sound and taste and smell and joy of falling in love and surrender.

I am back and I surrender to the whispers. I am writer. 

“Once upon a time...”

(In the midst of that decision, I review unfinished projects that need my attention as well, and I love rediscovering these stories and these characters as they welcome me back into their world.)