PAD Challenge Catch Up

I think I am killing my brain a bit trying to do this challenge and NaNo in the same month, but I will survive. Took a few days away from poems, either forgetting because I finished NaNo too late or in desperately needed rest.

I realize now that I need to listen to Hulk Hogan and take my damn vitamins. One can not live on coffee and cigarettes alone.

Here are the last four days of prompts, including today:

10th-A love poem.

"Orion"

I looked up and I saw

Orion, a dear warrior

in the sky.

All I could think of

was finding your face

to watch his belt.

You are my sunshine

I no longer need

a reason why.

11th-No One Wants (blank)

"No One Wants Sally"

hiding behind the bleachers

a bandanna over her hair

Sally probes her bomber jacket

for cigarettes-and stares

out to a painted field, colored

by white and blond and red

every color of the rainbow

it's all paranoia, in her head.

They'd let her join them if she wanted

but she chooses to be apart

Sally hits her smoke and falters

in second grade they broke her heart.

12th-Forget about it.

"Say"

"I forgot to say I love you."

"I know."

"There is no one else above you."

"I care."

"Is there anything to do?"

"The snow."

"It's more beautiful than you."

"I know."

13th-Open ended question.

"Where to Go"

Are you hungry

I think so, where

would you like to go?

I don't know, pass it

on, where would you

like to go? Well I

don't know, it's time

to chow, can you make

a decision tonight?

The Ways of the World: Under the Influence

There are many conflicting opinions on what one should read as a writer. Some authors-like David Eddings-claim to never read in their genre. Though he contradicted himself when he wrote of his love for the forms of medieval romance in the Introduction to The Rivan Codex. He was heavily influenced by this classic genre, and it shows in the similar plot structure of his books. It is better to admit to the influence your reading habits have on your writing, for then you can use it to your advantage.

The Writing Excuses podcast this week was on the proper way to steal. We have to be careful of plagiarism, and if you do not acknowledge and pay attention to how your influences texture your writing, you may be accused of being too derivative, as Eddings and Christopher Paolini often are.

The trick to harnessing your influences without getting caught is blending them in original ways. It's not the best of ideas to read in one genre to the exclusion of all others, it can lead to a sameness in style that will be noticed. My strategy to ensure I blend many different influences is to read multiple books at the same time.

Sure, I focus on one book occasionally, but for the last few years I've had a stack of about seven books that I'm reading. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I try to keep it on a set list of genres/styles, to ensure that I am not all over the place. The categories I settled on are: Religion, young adult, poetry, fantasy, reference, author criticism, and plays. These general headings cover the majority of my interests, and give enough leeway to plug in any book. My current reading list is the Bible, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, A collection of Shakespeare's poetry, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, A Field Guide to Narnia, and A Raisin in the Sun. There's also a collection of Faulkner's work and Spenser's poems on the stack, as well as my continuing quest to get through Tales Before Tolkien. Another trick for ensuring you get to at least three of your chosen books a day is to scatter them about the house, anywhere you sit down is my decorating plan.

This is a heavy list, but I'm playing catchup as well. It suits the procrastinator in me. The theory behind the list is what matters, and that can be tailored to suit your needs. For example, one of the best ways to steal without getting caught is to borrow from history. This would be a section of my reading list, but as I already have to read a lot of history in the course of homeschooling my son, I omit it from the stack. The important piece to remember is to have a set list of forms and styles you read in.

Get a list of forms, styles and genres together that you want to explore and have at it. It helps to set aside a set time for reading every day, and to decorate with books. This reading to expand your writing style can be considered separate from casual reading, and don't be afraid to take notes. Happy reading!

The Ways of the World: Addled by Adverbs

Editing is hell on the self esteem.

I took a poem that was quite nice to a workshop last week, and one of the comments was a request for a few less adverbs, if possible. For a long time, I wondered why so many have a prejudice over these little words that end in -ly.

I now see why it is so prevalent. These buggers are everywhere in my writing, lengthening sentences, helping me cop out of any meaningful description.

It's a travesty.

Adverbs are useful sometimes, but their overuse is a bad habit any writer can succumb to. You become so used to them in daily speech that they pop up in all your descriptions and nonfiction work as well. I cut at least fifty words from the prologue of my novel in adverbs alone. The word count benefited from this purge. It reads a lot clearer now, and the descriptions have more depth. I'll have a longer novel by forcing myself to give full descriptions, rather than using the adverb of the day.

How can you tell if you use too many adverbs in your work? My advice is to read it aloud, or have someone read it to you. Hearing it from an outside source and reading it on your own would be the best plan, for there are things you will notice stumbling over your words that will not pop up in your brain if you are listening to a piece, and vice-versa. Reading my prologue aloud at the Hotel Chelsea Literary Night on Thursdays @ 6 SLT did it for me. Every time I stumbled over my words an adverb was involved. Every. darn. time.

Why is this? Well, it comes from all the -ly's. You use too many adverbs, the -ly's breed like rabbits, and all of a sudden you feel like you are repeating yourself all the time. Even the most convoluted and original adverbs will become just another word for a reader to skip over.

And if you cause your readers to skip over too many words, well, the best idea for a story could be lost to glazed over eyes, and your book going back on the bookstore shelf, or never leaving the slush pile.

The real problem with adverbs is that they are weak words. There's always a phrase that can do it better, always a more constructive way to get that description across. They are great for dialogue. They are verbal shorthand that most of us use in our everyday lives. A well crafted conversation will use adverbs sparingly to give that feel of "real" speech, as will a good conversational piece of writing.

Adverbs have no place in description of setting or story, however. Cut them out. I have come to the painful conclusion that they dilute my writing. They do have their place, like any other part of speech. The job of a world building wordsmith is know where that place is, and put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The Ways of the World: Prolonging the Prologue

"Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king."

So begins the prologue to Brandon Sanderson's yet to be released book, The Way of Kings. As soon as I read it, I knew I had no reason to be worried about what is coming in August. The Stormlight Archive will be as awesome as the Mistborn Trilogy, if not better.

I can't wait.

Fangirl gushing aside, getting my hands on the paperback edition of Warbreaker, Sanderson's second standalone fantasy novel, changed my plans for this blog post. The prologue is a staple of epic fantasy, setting the central themes of a series, especially the prologue to the first book.

The Stormlight Archive will deliver more exciting magic battles and intricately designed politics like those that drove the plot of the Mistborn books. The only complaint that could be made is an overuse of capitals to emphasize new terminology, but I am a C.S. Lewis lover, so they make me happy more than exasperated. Most important to note, I felt involved in Mr. Sanderson's new world from that first line.

This is the job of a good prologue.

The proper balance of world building, characterization, and action in a prologue is a hard thing to achieve. The transition from prologue to first chapter also has to be considered in depth-it can make or break a reader's willingness to continue with your story. Some choose an action packed prologue followed by a first chapter that focuses on characterization, others choose a more historical bent to their beginning.

The prologue to The Eye of the World, the first book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, is a quick snapshot of the big conflict behind his whole story. This is not apparent upon first reading, but come back and read it again after finishing the book. The battle between Lews Therin Telamon and Ishmael is intense; huge amounts of magic are thrown around, and the system of checks and balances Jordan developed to keep suspension of disbelief is used in a way that can't be forgotten. When the first chapter starts with the mundane tasks of a small town boy, we keep reading to see how he could have anything to do with the power displayed in the prologue.

Balls to the wall action is not the only way to go. Many authors, including Papa Tolkien, achieve similar success by outlining the history of their important races. The prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring is all about hobbits, and that foreshadows the most important plot mover in the book, Frodo. David Eddings introduces his race of Alorns in the prologue to Pawn of Prophesy, though he does it in the form of a religious story as opposed to the historical style that Tolkien uses.

Eddings's prologue is successful because the first chapter in Pawn of Prophesy presents us Garion, an ignorant country boy. Whatever could he have to do with the deep religious history of the Alorns? We read onward to find out, just as we do in The Eye of the World. The first chapter is there as follow up, and the tag team punch of both is what grabs a reader with an epic conflict and believable characters to keep them reading your wonderful setting and awesome magic system.

The prologue is rather a lost art in mainstream fiction and other genre writing, but think of the importance of a good setup in sweeping historical tales and galaxy spanning science fiction. A prologue can help any story, if it is well written and followed by a first chapter that turns to the central characters.

Milkwood Poetry Festival

Time for a little shameless plugging, folks. I have been accepted as a reader for Milkwood's 1st Annual Poetry Festival. This scares me, but in a good way.

I have played the role of hermit writer for a long time. The draw of SecondLife for me lies in the opportunities to connect with other writers here. Part of connecting with other writers is reading your work out loud, and it has been a long time since I have participated in an open mic. Fear and transportation have gotten in my way for about five years now. The grid takes care of my transportation issue, at least.

Fear is a harder thing to handle. The literary community in world is full of talent, and I have come to respect the work of my fellow writers here. The lineup of the poetry fest reads like my most wanted list. Flawnt Alchemi is leading off the festival at 1Pm Friday, at the Bookstacks Performance Space. I adore his use of language. Rosemary Serenity will be reading at Storybook Dell, 1:45PM, her introspective musings on human nature always inspire me. Another must see for me on Friday will be Stosh Quartz at the Stone Circle, 2PM. I enjoyed her poetry workshop at the Haunted Library the few times I could make it. The other workshop she's involved in, Saturday mornings at 10AM, at The Blue Angel Poet's Dive, has been a quest of mine from my first Saturday on grid. It would seem a perfect time for me, with the afternoon just settling in here and laziness the name of the game after a week of schoolishness. Various rl and sl things have gotten in the way, and the time of the workshop does, well, float around a bit. I will catch a full one this Saturday morning. Maybe.

Back to the poetry fest and my quest to get over the inevitable stage fright that settled in when I received a request from Harriet Gausman, the lovely mistress of Milkwood, for an author biography. My brain screamed help and my fingers flew to the Google search bar. I found some good advice, and spent an hour crafting a little blurb about myself, rather skewed towards my avatar persona, such as it is. Self promotion is a skill that I am still learning, partly by reading, mostly via trial by fire. I feel relatively squeemish doing it, but there's nothing to do but try. At least I am reading on Saturday.

Friday afternoon will be spent taking in the sights of Milkwood to the accompaniment of words whose beauty may surpass the view. While I furiously take mental notes and get my setlist of poems ordered for my own reading Saturday at the Stone Circle, of course. The grid has given me a wonderful new source for deadlines. Harriet is a gentle taskmistress, though. I work better under pressure, it makes me force my brain to a stop and go forward with an idea.

I am on after Rosedrop Rust, a poet I enjoy and respect a lot. The one open mic I can get to with any regularity, Literary Night at the Hotel Chelsea, has been graced with his presence on quite a few happy occasions. His particular brand of word whimsy is always enlightening, and slightly twisted. His poems make me smile. After all that joy, maybe my fears will be erased and I can sail right through my thirty minutes of personal horror without so much as a stutter. I'll just imagine all the avatars are wearing underwear, yeah. Or is someone willing to do me a favor and come that way?

I didn't think so. Damn.

The party of poetry at the Stone Circle on Saturday also includes Klannex Northmead, pirateneko poet extrodinare - pray he reads Peaches, everyone - and Huckleberry Hax, who in addition to being a poet also writes stories using the uniqueness of the grid as a setting.

Sunday's readings are going to be housed in the cozy Haunted Library Room, perfect for the weaving of words on an early spring afternoon. That last statement about spring may be wishful thinking, but let me have my dreams people, please. The dumping of snow on the east coast led to one aborted Blue Angel workshop attempt, and one complete miss. Corwyn Allen, reading at 3PM, shared a deep and descriptive work in progress at the part of a workshop I did make it to. I look forward to hearing his words, while ensconced in a rich, velvet covered chair, surrounded by dark bookcases, and in front of a roaring fire.

Right now, the yearning for that moment is making the draft in my office more noticeable. April, save us! I shall take solace in the writer's fantasy that is Milkwood, and let the words of my fellows and my own leap of faith propel me through March, to glorious spring.

The entire lineup of poets for the 1st Annual Milkwood Poetry Festival is as follows:

Friday, March 5th, 2010
Flawnt Alchemi - 1PM - Bookstacks Performance Space
Morgue McMillan - 1:30PM - Outside Milk Wood Library
Rosemary Serenity 1:45PM - at Storybook Dell
Stosh Quartz - 2:00 - 2:30PM - at the Stone Circle
Kezhen Yheng - 2:30-3PM - at the Stone Circle

Saturday, March 8th - Stone Circle
Rosedrop Rust - 1:00 - 1:30PM
June Stormcrow - 1:30 - 2:00PM
Donjuan Writer - 2:00 - 2:15PM
Morgue McMillan - 2:15 - 2:30PM
Klannex Northmead - 2:30-3:00PM
Huckleberry Hax - 3:00 - 3:15PM

Sunday, March 7th - Haunted Library, Milkwood
Wolfgang Glinka - 1:00 - 1:30PM
Kamille Kamala 1:30 - 2:00PM
IU's Man in Black - 2:00 - 2:30PM
Aianna Oh - 2:30-3:00PM
Corwyn Allen - 3:00 - 3:30PM
Manx Wharton - 3:30 -4:00PM

This is an event enabled by voice. Please do not feel pressured to speak, only encouraged to listen. All times are SLT.

I love having fine print.

The Meaning of Art on Second Life®

The SLCPro event this week certainly came with a lot of announcements about Linden Lab's current projects, including the release of the Viewer 2.0 Beta to the public and the unveiling of their new Third Party Viewer Policy. After losing myself reading about all these developments in the blogs, the one that stuck out as the most interesting to me was the establishment of a Linden Endowment for the Arts. While the prospect of LL putting this much behind a particular community on the grid is intriguing, what really drew me into this conversation was the questions that immediately sprung up in the comment section of the forum about WHAT sort of arts the endowment was meant to support.

Niko Linden admitted that if you ask one hundred people their definition of art, you will get a hundred different answers. The vagueness of the post that sparked all the debate of what art was deserving of such a program may have been due to the project being in nebulous stages, or a move to gauge the breadth of art that is on the grid by the contents of the applications they receive. The comments on the blog may be the most pointed feedback they find on this new initiative, and the Lindens involved with the initial planning stages that led to the post do appear to be listening.

What is art is an age old question, and this virtual world of ours draws in residents that wish to express their creativity in many forms. Do we, as writers who may not be involved in much of the content creation aspect of the grid, deserve to be eligible for an endowment to support our use of the grid to expand our sources of inspiration and ability to network? Are musicians not real Second Life® artists because their exploitation of the platform is more in the way of being able to personally access a worldwide audience? Should the Linden endowment only benefit those that integrate their art with 3D capabilities to the "fullest" extent they can?

There aren't easy answers to any of these convoluted questions, but then again, that seems to be the way of much in the social experiment of the grid. I personally think that the Lindens should bestow their grace on any art or artist that breathes new life to the grid through their creations, no matter what aspect of the environment is making it an unique experience.

The ability to hear original music through the live venues of the grid has been a godsend for me, I would never get to as many shows as I have in the last month without Second Life®. It is not the same as going to a bar or an arena, but that has a lot of benefits as well. No crush of people, no expensive tickets, cover charge, or drink prices, and you can still talk with your friends. Depending on the artist, they may even have an SLCD for sale so you can take the music home. A more personal way of finding new music than Myspace or Facebook, and more entertaining as well.

Visual art is also a driving force behind my grid explorations. There is art in many of the builds of the grid, sometimes in the most unexpected places. The ability to buy original art to hang on my virtual walls is also a great bonus of the Second Life® experience for me. I enjoy seeing the work ofl visual artists in the environments they wish to build around it. There is a lot of experimenting going on with 3D visual art on the grid as well, and the shared media aspect of the new viewer can only serve to heighten those possibilities.

As writers, we are mostly using the grid for networking and workshopping our current projects with fellow writers, but shared media may open many new doors for us as well when it is more universal. I believe it will make it much easier to network, and also easier to share our work between ourselves and amongst the rest of the residents of the grid. Some would say ours is the art form least deserving of an endowment from the Lindens, as most sharing of content in the literary world of sl is done through audio or offsite forums. Notecards are still the most basic of notepad documents, and texturizing our work is not really an option for novelists. I have some great ideas for doing my poems in illuminated form as scanned textures, but have yet to start that project. The upcoming poetry festival at Milkwood will hopefully inspire me to truly get to work on that project.

Should the endowment be for art that could not exist without content unique to Second Life®? Or should the Lindens be accepting of all artists that have a presence on the grid? The meaning and purpose of any art is such an endless source for human discussion, it will be very interesting to see what eventually comes of these initial plans, and what it means for all the artists of Second Life®.