The appeal of the stage
I have to say that on the whole I admire actors. Being able to pull off a performance as they do. Not just reciting lines but moving to specific places on stage, affecting moods to transmit mood. Being able to do it over and over on command for several performances and then forgetting it all and moving on to the next production. It’s quite a skill.
But I think I admire the plays more. It takes talent to adapt something written on paper and to imagine how you would portray a particular sentiment so that an audience would understand your meaning is a feat.
Miller outdoor theater in Hermann Park
It takes a particular type of writer to pull it off. The act of adapting a story can be somewhat arduous . In some cases it can prove to be impossible. Some writer’s styles (Lovecraft for example), some media (some comic books) don’t easily lend themselves to be turned into plays or movies.
So what is the appeal of going to see a live play? I think when it’s done properly and you have a good script and talented actors that it’s not so much a recitation of the author’s words as much as it is a peek into someone else’s life. You forget that you’re in a theater surrounded by strangers and the story begins to be transmitted straight into your mind. You can get involved in this other world for an hour or two and see a conflict evolve to its final climax and resolution.
One thing I never understood about public school is when they would take classic plays and force the kids to recite the plays in class. It was a ridiculous chore and I could tell most of the kids hated it. The teachers did it because it was mandated but even they had no real appetite for the material. The old English text didn’t make much sense to the kids. The words were dead. I remember at one point a kid had recited a joke in “As you like it” and the professor had to explain that it was a joke.
Instead they should have taken the class on a field trip to see real professionals put life and passion into the words. Let kids see the anger and confusion in Hamlet, hear Macbeth and his inner turmoil over killing his king, laugh along at some of the jokes in midsummer’s night dream. That’s how these pieces were meant to be received.
I don’t get to go as often as I like but when I do I find that we have so many options in Houston that you can really find a wide variety of pieces ranging from light comedies to heavy and thought-provoking pieces. I always feel that it’s time well spent.
Abbreviated post
Life gets hectic, even impossible sometimes. It just does.
When push comes to shove we sometimes have to shed some activities or habits in order to keep the rest of our lives running.
“Just the essentials”
We all come upon these times in our lives. Right now my household is turned upside down, my ankle is twisted, my air conditioning is broken, my…. You get the picture. It’s a mess. Why am I at a keyboard then? Even for a short post?
well I suppose I can take comfort in writing, I can keep practicing something that I like doing. It provides a little bit of focus in a world out of focus.
More importantly I don’t have anything else to do. I have to wait for others to make decisions, to come back with answers or to do some work.
I have nothing else to do, so why not write. Even just this short blurb.
Just the essentials. Sometimes, something like this is an essential.
making time to make words
I’ve been horrible about writing this year. I really have. In total I think I have maybe 4 sessions of an hour apiece for the last 5 months. Besides writing this blog I haven’t really done anything on my writing.
I was at a writing panel the other week and they pointed out that the most important thing to do as a writer was to actually sit down and write. I felt as if that were aimed right at me.
I could make all the excuses in the world but the fact remains that I need to put more time and effort into writing. Not just into writing but into editing. I have a couple of pieces that I think have some potential but I need to get them moving and that’s another thing that I need to do.
But how to go about doing that? The quick and easy answer is that you just do. I could make excuses all year-long and never get anything down or I could try to at the very least I would be making the effort.
That’s really at the core of whatever you want to do in life whether it’s your work or it’s a hobby or something else you have to be willing to actually do whatever it is you do.
It doesn’t matter if it turns out terrible. At least you’re trying and that’s more than most people do. And even if you do fail at least you can say that you gave it your best effort.
time enough
Writing is an activity that I’ve enjoyed throughout my life. Making up short stories, recording my speculations, thinking out loud on paper, even writing full length novels. I’ve engaged in all of these over the years.
I’ve put together three novel length works over the years and they all lie in various states of editing. That is to say they all need to be finished. Unfortunately this requires no just the time to finish but the services of a professional editor and again more time to meet with the editor and go back and forth in an interactive process. Not something that I can afford to engage in time wise.
I’ve joined various writing groups in town and I find it both exciting and depressing when I hear that a fellow writer is moving forward with getting a novel published. Exciting because I feel that I am in contact and interacting with the professional writing community in my city. Depressing because it reminds me that I need to get going on my work.
This year has been packed with responsibilities, with work, with a thousand mini-emergencies that require my attention. Little things really. But they need to be tended and unfortunately they tend to sap away the precious time needed to “write”.
Then of course you have to be in the mood to write. I know this sounds ridiculous but you have to be in the right mindset in order to write. Or at least I have to. I don’t just turn it on and off like a faucet. I can sit at a table with my laptop for hours looking at the screen and get nothing done. Other times ideas are gushing out of me a mile a minute.
So I’m kind of stuck. I want to get something done this year with at least one novel. But finding the time has been difficult. I barely have the time to keep this blog going.
I also have to admit that I am a bit hesitant to let a stranger, and a professional critic at that, tear into my work. I just have to hope that I can find the time and psych myself up to get this done. I am sure that once I get through the first editing session that I will be able to get the process rolling.
Poetry
No, this isn’t a poetry entry. Just some thoughts on the subject.
I went to a poetry reading the other day and they had two poets reading from some of their latest books. I regularly attend readings by a local group called Inprint, which brings notable authors to Houston.
One poet struck a particular chord within me. His poems dealt with his relationship with his father who had recently passed away. His words so eloquently expressed his feelings as he dealt with his loss with a minimum of diction. Yet even though he didn’t write down all that much the few words that he did write down beautifully expressed his sentiments and the feeling of the moment.
It has always amazed me how poets can work with words and weave them so intricately and so expertly and even though I work with the same media that they can make something so elegant and so concise whereas I feel that my writing is at best a ham-fisted approach to distill and convey a message to my readers.
Their approach, their technique, can be likened to a delicate ballet whilst mine is merely clumsy clog dancing. I have to admit that I have always been envious of that but not jealous. I know deep down inside that I am no poet. While I can admire their craft and appreciate what they have written I know it’s not something that I could ever do. So I don’t resent their talent and ability to express themselves so eloquently.
My talent, if indeed I do have any talent, lies in clumsily expressing myself in a more pedestrian and unremarkable prosaic style. Presenting the facts, all the facts, before the reader and lending them my sense of the scene as I see and guiding them through the action.
Hopefully some day, something that I write will be found worth printing and I will be able to share this with a much wider audience. It won’t be a pretty dance of words like that of these poets but exhibited but I hope that it will be worth reading.
Supporting players
I attended a play the other week. It was a musical comedy with the main character also acting as a narrator. All the cast members were brilliant and played off each others lines and really made the play come together.
One thing I noticed was how well the supporting characters filled in the details and made the story come to life as the main character narrated the action.
When writing either a short story or a long novel it is always tempting to give the best lines or leave most of the action up to the main character. Some writers put something of themselves into the main character and it’s tempting to give this character the best lines and most action. But think about it. Does this really happen in real life? Of course not!
If you really want to write a more realistic and more in-depth story then spread the action around some. I don’t mean totally dilute what your main character does but think about how situations and how conflicts begin, evolve, and are resolved in your real life.
News comes in from some sources, others add more details, you make decisions, you explain these to others who in turn make their decisions, everyone talks about it and then either take action or not and the event gets resolved.
The other thing about supporting players is that too often they are merely props that are not fleshed out. They serve to deliver one or two lines of dialogue but are never fully explored. Look into their background almost as closely as you would for your main characters. Sometimes the backgrounds of these supporting players can be even more interesting than your main character.
Same thing goes for villains as well. The better your villain is developed and fleshed out the better your hero will look and your story will be that more interesting because of it.
I think if you take this advice you will not only end up with a more interesting tale to tell but you will find that you will enjoy the writing process more.
The point of it all
Whenever you do any activity for an extended period of time you will eventually get to the point that you start asking yourself some deep questions regarding that activity.
Just doing the activity used to be enough for me. I do miss those days when just doing was enough. I find myself getting wistful for the simplicity of those times. But as you age and progress you get more time to sit and consider your situation then I guess such questions are inevitable.
So, there I am sitting writing and I hit a bit of a stumbling point in my writing. The sentences all look wrong, the paragraph structure doesn’t make much sense and I’m wondering where this is all going. Not so much where this particular story is going. That I have a handle on but where am I really going with this whole writing thing.
Is anything that I write really all that worthwhile reading?
I’ve been dallying and switching back and forth between science fiction and literary fiction for the past couple of years and I’ve been thinking of combining both into the sub-genre of literary science fiction, a really rarefied form of literature that would be quite difficult to produce.
In my local writing groups I’ve seen a couple of younger writers plunging on and taking their stories to their editors and looking for publishers and generally getting on with producing their work. They’re totally committed and fearless in moving forward.
Meanwhile I’m sitting on 2 stories that I could at the very least send to an editor and get some honest feedback before moving on to the next stage. But again I have to ask myself what is the point of this whole exercise? Am I doing this just to exercise my imagination and my typing fingers or do I want to get something published?
I don’t think I want to keep all of this private and to myself. I do want to share what I am writing with a wider audience. Being in contact with actual writers, with editors, and other writing enthusiasts has broadened my horizons considerably in the last few years. Particularly in the last year that I’ve spent with members of the Houston Science Fiction writing group.
I don’t think that I will ever make a fortune writing or that I will even make a good living but I do think that I want to release some of these ideas out to a wider audience.
I am currently thinking that my focus should go back to what I know best and that my first story should be a familiar theme that I know well and that I am more confident in. A nice “easy” science fiction story that I can work with my editor on and get ready for publication.
I wish I could do something more literary as my first effort but if I’m going to take the plunge into publishing I think that I need to do something where I can build up my confidence and my experience first before tackling something more substantial.
What’s your alignment?
From time to time people post all sorts of little quizzes and memes on social media. One of the more prevalent ones deals with alignments such as what they had in boardgames like Dungeons & Dragons.
Some background. In these boardgames you had to make up a character. This reflected what values you wanted to represent in the game so you could be wise or strong or agile. Further the game allowed you to customize the character by choosing your character’s outlook on life. This was determined by two variables.
The first variable is fairly easy to understand. Good, Evil, and Neutral. Are you good or evil or somewhere in between. Are you the type of person that kicks puppies or rescues kittens out of trees or stops to consider what to do based on the situation.
The other variable is also somewhat self explanatory. Lawful, Chaotic, or again Neutral. Do you follow the letter of the law in every situation? See a rule and break it just because or again go with what your gut tells you to do.
These two variables form a matrix with nine elements and when you start mixing and matching elements you get some pretty interesting results to consider.
An alignment matrix using characters from popular movies and TV shows as examples.
For example let’s consider lawful evil. Wait, that’s possible, you ask? Quite so and it makes for some extremely interesting and seemingly conflicted characters. A person that believes that the rules of law and civilization must be followed but then turns around and uses that very law and order for evil purposes. In many ways the scariest of the combinations. Look at some of our own real world examples. Hitler, several of the roman emperors, the Russian czars. On a more local level think of a crooked city official or policeman that uses the law for his own corrupt purposes.
On the opposite side of the matrix is the Chaotic good. Someone that doesn’t want to hurt anyone or do anything bad but just can’t seem to live by any sort of rules. I think that describes a fair portion of the population, don’t you? Hard to come up with world leaders for this combination as by definition they don’t work well within systems. In the real world this would be your messed up friend that always means well and wants to help but his life is an eternal mess of unresolved issues and pending problems.
True neutral is a combination that gets mistaken for good neutral quite a bit. I think it’s something that some people strive for but really don’t comprehend or consider the ramifications of that combination. Sometimes you do good, sometimes you do bad, sometimes you follow the rules and sometimes you don’t. The overriding consideration is how the situation will affect you personally and sometimes that will make you look like a heel. Real world examples are kind of tough. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind as he advocated rule of law but on the other hand he was a revolutionary. He preached equality and brotherhood but owned slaves. A character such as this would be a person that did what he needed to survive but occasionally did something good for others but with the understanding that it somehow benefited him.
So what am I? Well when I was a kid and played this game I have to admit I always went for the lawful good. Goody two shoes that I was. It wasn’t till later in life that I had a chance to really sit down and think about all the implications of it all. True neutral? no. Probably somewhere between neutral good and chaotic good
But is it art?
The National Novel Writing month (NaNoWriMo) has commenced and all across the nation budding Stephen Kings, and Michael Crichtons and Mickey Spillanes all pour their thoughts and feelings down on computer screens. Most of these novels won’t ever go anywhere but at least the seeds of writing will get planted here and there and who knows maybe some day one of these writers will be a best seller.
I don’t really entertain such lofty aspirations for myself. For me it’s enough to set all this down on paper or in the computer and get it out of my system. If someone reads it, understands it, maybe even appreciates it, then so much the better.
One thing though that I have yet to answer satisfactorily, at least to some folks satisfaction, is it art? Is writing really an art form that can be posted alongside paintings, or sculpture, or musical compositions. Those you can look at and even if you don’t like it you at least acknowledge as art.
Whenever I attend an art gallery or showing or whatever and the question inevitably arises “What do you do?” my artist friends reply that they paint or sculpt or whatever and when it comes to be my turn I answer that I write.
A pause fills the air. An unspoken “Oh, that’s nice” seems to hang there.
People don’t really know where to take the conversation with that. With painters you can ask them what medium they work in or what style of painting or their particular subject matter.
With writers though you firstly don’t know what a good follow-up question is (hint: ask what genre they work in), secondly I think there is a bit of a misconception that writing really isn’t all that special a skill, that it really doesn’t require discipline or creativity. Anyone can write is what most people feel.
Another challenge is that with a painting, a photograph, a sculpture that you can see the art work in its totality right then and there. With writing you might have to dig several chapters deep into a book, really curl up in a chair on in bed for a long time to start to finally appreciate the work.
For example, a sports writer writes up a review of a football game or a boxing match and waxes poetically about the event, he adds historical allusions, adds similes, really goes all out and doesn’t just provide cold hard facts. Is that art or is it just an overwrought report?
Some guy writes up a story about space aliens and bug-eyed monsters that’s been rehashed over and over again and is so predictable that it’s boring. Again is that art or just someone dealing out the same tired storyline?
To that I say that just as there are great thought-provoking paintings and just like there are paintings of dogs playing poker, there is good writing and there is bad writing but the main thing is that it’s all art.
We may have to pour in a thousand words to say as much as your one picture but the point is that we do pour in those thousand words and every little blog post, short story, or even great american novel is worthy of being regarded as art. We stress and worry over the placement of every paragraph, the structure of every sentence, the choice of every word as much a poet choosing the right color or a songwriter choosing the right note.
If the point of art is to elicit a response, to make another person think, to communicate an idea then yes writing is an art form and writers are artists just as much as anyone that ever picked up a brush or strummed a note from a guitar.
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