writing – Page 3 – Lena Corazon

Tag: writing (page 3 of 7)

ROW80: When One Email Equals Success

I need a little bit of this in my life.

My morning began with a freakout.

Well, no, that’s not entirely true. My morning actually began with a wonderfully incandescent moment where I turned on the radio and heard the sweet, gentle sounds of of Ralph Vaughn Williams’ exquisite “Serenade to Strings.” It was when the piece was finished that I found myself falling into panic mode.

The problem: I’ve spent the last three weeks telling myself to email my dissertation advisor to tell her all the things I’ve learned in the course of my research over the last three months. The longer I wait, the more panicked I get. But every time I sit down to write the darn email, I freeze up. Why? Because everything I write sounds less than perfect.

It’s the curse of the overachiever, this need to be hyper-critical and always in control. Judging from the comments on my last couple of posts, many of you can relate. It’s perhaps the ultimate irony that all of our attempts to be perfect leave us frustrated and dissatisfied, ready to throw in the towel and just be done with life.

Little by little, moment by moment, I am trying to undo these nasty habits.

What would happen if I trusted in my talents and abilities? If I was confident that my advisor won’t judge me if I send along a few underdeveloped ideas? If I trusted that brainstorming + a little work will yield the theoretical framework that my project currently lacks?

I’d work faster, I’d be more creative, and I’d be so. much. happier.

My friend Chad Carver may have said it best in his latest blog post:

In fact, our imperfect humanness is what makes us great artists because the interesting people are those whose character are coloured with most, or all, of the hues of the human condition. They are, as a result of their layers of virtue and vice, capable of wide thinking, and profound creativity. So, embrace your imperfection.

“Embrace your imperfection.” That’s an awesome sort of battle cry, isn’t it?

-oOo-

Here’s what I’ve accomplished in this first week Round 1:

DAY JOB:
I finished preliminary research at 2 out of 6 sites, continued to work through my notes, finally emailed my committee, and read 80 pages of Coburn & Smith’s Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836-1920, which looks to be really useful for my work. For next week:

Type up notes from my last round of data collection.
Schedule meetings at 2 more convent archives.
Finish Spirited Lives and start Across God’s Frontiers: Catholic Sisters in the American West, 1850-1920.

WRITING:
I sort of ditched last week’s plan and revisited my August CampNaNoWriMo novel, STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. It is in surprisingly good shape, possibly because it has more of a plot than any of my other WIPs (plots are useful things, did you all know that?), but I don’t necessarily know that I want to make that my major project for the year. However, I did write a couple of poems: “muse” and “drought“. For next week:

More poetry.
Reread TELL ME NO LIES (for real this time) and make the Ultimate Editing Battle Plan.

SOCIAL MEDIA:
I made my rounds to the allotted number of blogs this past week, answered all my comments, and spent a little time on Twitter. I didn’t write my 2 non-ROW80 posts, which tells me that I really need to write them over the weekend. For next week:

2 non-ROW80 posts
Continue visiting blogs/leaving comments/responding to comments

SELF-CARE:
Confession time: I have been avoiding books for the last few weeks because I know without a doubt that once I start, I will never be able to stop reading. I will become a tired, haggard, zombie-like shell of a person because I will stay up all night devouring books, and I won’t get anything else done.

But! I marshaled a little self-control and took the plunge into the world of books. I read THE RUTH VALLEY MISSING by the wonderful Amber West (seriously amazing book; review forthcoming), along with the latest novella in Lindsay Buroker’s EMPEROR’S EDGE series, BENEATH THE SURFACE (also fantastic). For next week:

More reading.
More journaling.

How has the first week of Round 1 treated everyone else? Have you hit the ground running, or are you slowly building up momentum?

Be sure to swing by and visit this week’s ROWers to offer them lots of encouragement and word love!

ROW80: Starting Fresh With Strength, Courage & Wisdom

January 6, 2013 / Lena Corazon / 33 Comments

January 7th marks the start of a new round of A Round of Words in 80 Days, “the writing challenge that knows you have a life.” For those of you looking for more information about the challenge, you can find it here.

I’m waving a wildly enthusiastic hello to all my old ROW80 friends, and offering the warmest of welcomes to all the new folks joining in on this round. This community is one of the most supportive and welcoming that I’ve found online, and is one of the reasons that I’m participating in my 7th (!!!!) round.

For anyone who may have missed my first post of the year, I’ve declared that 2013 will be my year to “stop the cray.” I’m pulling the plug on negative thinking, nasty energy, and all the habits that cause me to sabotage my own success.

To aid me on this journey, I’m blasting my anthem song for the year, “Strength, Courage, and Wisdom,” by India.Arie. As she sings,

It’s time to step out on faith, I’ve gotta show my face
It’s been elusive for so long but freedom is mine today
I’ve gotta step out on faith, it’s time to show my face
Procrastination had me down but look what I have found

With a little strength, courage, and wisdom in my life, I’m launching myself towards two giant goals for the year: (1) completing (at least) one novel and (2) finishing the first draft of my dissertation.

I won’t lie. Just typing those giant goals makes me want to do this:

But if there’s anything I’ve learned with ROW80, it’s that identifying small, achievable goals goes a long way to helping me conquer seemingly insurmountable tasks. With that in mind, here are my overall goals for Round 1:

DAY JOB:

Finish dissertation proposal and have quarterly meeting with committee
Complete preliminary archival research at 4 out of 6 locations
Continue to write rough sketches of research memos based on collected data

WRITING:

Write 2-3 poems each week
Revisit TELL ME NO LIES and THE PEACOCK QUEEN; identify what needs to be tweaked/fixed/written in order to finish first drafts
Figure out Ultimate Editing Battle Plan (and which novel I feel like hanging out with–or if the answer to this question is “both”)

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Write 1 ROW80 check-in post each Sunday, along with 2 non-ROW80 posts each week
Respond to all blog comments
Use weekends for catching up with Google Reader, Twitter, and Facebook
Visit 10 blogs each week to read, comment, and promote posts

SELF-CARE:

Journal daily
Read 1 novel each week
Unplug when necessary

So there you have it, folks! Is everyone feeling rested and ready to go? Anything special y’all are looking forward to this year?

Tell me all about it in the comments, and be sure to swing by and wave hello to everyone else participating this round.

ROW80: Some Belated December Goals

December 10, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 3 Comments

Erm… It’s December. Has anyone noticed that? And it’s not just December, but practically mid-December…

I suppose I shouldn’t be completely shocked, but I feel like it was just yesterday I crossed the 50k finish line for NaNoWriMo (a day early, I might add), and got this lovely shiny badge to ~~affix to every possible surface online and off~~ display proudly.

And now it’s holiday season! Decorations are going up around town, the local radio station is playing festive carols, and I am staying far, far away from all shopping centers, because mall parking lots during December must be a tenth circle of hell that Dante forgot to write about. However, I have been playing this video clip non-stop for the last few days, and it is giving me all the feels. Mariah Carey, Jimmy Fallon, the Roots, and a bunch of random little kids? Perfection.

Now that NaNo is through, and December is most definitely here, I figure it’s time for some amended goals for the remainder of this round of ROW80. Here’s what I have on the list…

Revise and submit my 25-page dissertation proposal to my committee by the end of December. The “official” proposal will be done by mid-January, and I will hopefully be able to amend that for a grant proposal due mid-February. This week’s mini-goal: Continue archive research, read sociological journal articles, start hammering out guiding dissertation questions and a theoretical framework.

Suspend fiction-writing till 2013, when the “Year of Edits” will begin in earnest. Aim for writing at least 3 poems each week, just to keep those skills sharp. This week’s mini-goal: Revise 1 poem, write 2 more.

Use my daily sprints over at the #ROW80 hashtag (11 am Pacific Time) for generating blog content, including posts for December and some for January. This week’s mini-goal: Complete 3 blog posts, not counting ROW80 check-ins.

There are still a million other thing I need to be doing–Twitter and Facebook? Reading other people’s blogs? Commenting on those blogs? Remembering to wash my hair?–but these are my biggest priorities at the moment. It’s all about baby steps, right?

How many of you have decided to alter your goals to accomodate the holiday season?

ROW80: The Highs and Lows of Literary Abandon

November 17, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 11 Comments

As all Wrimos know, National Novel Writing Month bills itself as “30 days of literary abandon.” This year, I’m finding that “literary abandon” is something akin to “playing in the sandbox with full permission to get my clothes dirty.” I’ve given up all hope of plots, plans, or outlines. I don’t even think I have a stable list of characters anymore. Instead, I’m making it all up as I go along.

The result? Sheer chaos. And I’m loving it.

This is basically how I feel when I write with abandon.

I can introduce characters halfway through the novel if I want, ditch them if they don’t quite work, or keep ’em around if they do. I can write scenes out of order, mix them around, see where they fall best. I can be as outrageous as I want, and it’s okay, because I’ll go back one day and fix it up so that it’s pretty and shiny.

It’s a process of discovery, pure and simple. But of course, sometimes too much freedom translates into “Dear God, what the hell am I DOING???” sort of meltdowns.

This is what happened over the last week (hence the lack of Sunday/Wednesday check-ins), but I *think* it’s under control right now.

At the moment, I have a band of random characters journeying into the enemy country of Osgiliath (because when I can’t figure out names, I ~~shamelessly steal~~ borrow from Lord of the Rings), to track down a stolen Device that can wreak all sorts of havoc.

What exactly is the Device, you ask? I have no idea. How are they going to steal it back from the Enemy? I don’t know the answer to that either. But it’s okay, because this is NaNoWriMo, and my zero draft is allowed to have ALL the loose ends.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself. 😛

Here’s how the rest of my week has gone down:

Day Job: I’m slowly gathering the energy to start rewrites for my dissertation proposal. The soft deadline to my committee is mid-December, with an eventual meeting sometime in January. Once I get through NaNoWriMo, this will be my top priority.

Writing: I lost a few days mid-week, but I’m getting back on track. I’ve written just over 24k, and by the end of the weekend I’ll hopefully be half-way through. Scrivener tells me that if I write 2k each day, I’ll finish up on time.

Exercise: I’m on track, walking 4 days a week. Mom and I have decided to tackle our diet next, so I’m trying to slowly cut back on salty and sugary things, and incorporate more veggies. Portion control is also on the to-do list, but we’ll see how that plan goes once Thanksgiving rolls around.

Social Media: I haven’t gotten a chance to swing by any ROW80 blogs in a week or so (sorry, guys!), but I have read/commented on a couple non-ROW80 blogs each day.

Over on tumblr, I posted my first poem in almost a month (so good to get back to writing poetry). And here on Flights of Fancy, I got the chance to review a book written by Sebastian Orth, who did my first tattoo back in May. It’s a phenomenal book–part autobiography, part philosophical musing on the art of tattooing. I definitely recommend it.

Self-Care: I’ve gotten distracted from my early morning journaling + poetry writing sessions, and I also realized that I haven’t been reading nearly enough of late. Now that I’m catching up with the NaNo word count, I aim to correct all these things.

-oOo-

And that’s it for me, folks! I’ll be busy over the next few days with family–my sister and my grandfather are flying in on Tuesday, and I really can’t wait.

Be sure to swing by and give a hearty hello to the rest of the ROW80 participants!

ROW80: NaNoWriMo Teaches Me Things, Week 1

November 7, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 14 Comments

Happy Wednesday, friends! We are 1 week into National Novel Writing Month, and I’ve gotta say, I am learning some serious lessons as I mash my keyboard towards 50K and tons of (imaginary) glory.

Lesson #1: Plotting is Awesome, But It’s Writing That Counts

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I spent a few weeks in October trying to outline, brainstorm, and plot my still-unnamed NaNo novel. I had a bit of success early on with characters and storylines, but at the last minute my muse jumped ship and went rogue, leaving me with roughly a half-dozen different directions and a whole lot of heartache.

Once November 1st rolled around, however, all that angst went out of the window… and that’s because my characters decided that they were going to take control. Hence Velda, one of my main characters, deciding that she wasn’t the mousy, timid girl I had met during my brainstorming sessions. Now she’s a grouchy, somewhat-bitchy 16 year old with a chip on her shoulder. And Helena Grey, the character I introduced in my last ROW80 check-in, wasn’t even supposed to be in the novel, but I started writing and lo! There she was.

English: Lower Rogue River, Oregon, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lesson #2: Go With the Flow

This is my 2nd November NaNoWriMo, but my 4th attempt at throwing down 50k in 1 month, if you count CampNaNo ’11 and ’12. I’ve reached 50k every time, but this is the first year that I’ve been really content to go with the flow. Instead of obsessing over potential storylines and plots, I’m picking one and following its lead. There will be things that need to be tweaked once I go back to edit, but I expect that these days. And that’s because I’ve learned….

Photo Credit: chrisinplymouth via flickr

Lesson #3: It’s All About the Zero Draft

…that I work best when I can vomit words all over a zero draft. This untitled tale is WIP #5 on my list, and the first one where I don’t feel stressed out or worried that my first attempts are imperfect. As much as I hate to admit it, my need for perfection not only slows me down to a snail’s pace but also sabotages my creative attempts. Instead of throwing myself into the writing process, I get tripped up with “right and wrong” (I am a horrible goody-two-shoes perfectionist) and end up paralyzed with indecision.

This zero draft is disgusting. It is dripping with cliches and repetition and really lame metaphors and tons of blanks spots, all flagged with my handy “[ins word here]” brackets. But my zero draft also contains the skeleton of what will eventually (hopefully?) become a beautiful, complex, multi-layered novel, plus tons of notes on the spots where I know I haven’t gotten it right. This is a win-win as far as I am concerned.

Lesson #4, Writing By Hand is the Trick

I’ve posted about writing by hand before, but this month it seems to have become my #1 solution for getting stuff done. I’ve been really distracted by practically everything for the last week, and the internet has been one huge shiny sparkly thing for me to poke at when I’m supposed to be writing. I’ve got it bad, you guys, switching windows when I’m half-way through a sentence because I’ve decided that looking at FB/G+/Twitter/a million other things is a really good idea.

At the moment, shutting the computer down to work through scenes by hand is the best solution I’ve come up with. It’s a little more work in the long-run, since I have to go and type everything up once I’m through, but it is exactly what I need in order to stay focused.

The NaNoWriMo notebook, and my writing implements of choice.

This morning I’m hovering around 12.3K. I didn’t do as much writing as Tuesday as I wanted (spent most of the day in the archive/watching election returns), so I’m glad I’ve got a wee bit of a cushion. My goal is to write roughly 2k each day between now and Sunday, just to get a little farther ahead. Provided I don’t run out of ideas (which is a distinct possibility), I should be able to pull that goal off.

So yay! How’s everyone handling hump day? Don’t forget to cheer on the rest of the ROW80 participants over here.

ROW80: November is Here!

November 4, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 12 Comments

It’s here, it’s here! November is herrrrre!

I’m not quite sure how November got here, because I was really enjoying October, but I have embraced this new month with open arms.

I have had my first taste of the Harney and Sons holiday tea that Barnes and Noble serves each year, and I’ll be getting my hands on a red Starbucks holiday cup before too long. I am gleefully giving in to the onslaught of holiday music–my playlist of jazzy Christmas tunes and choral music is all queued up and ready to go.

My sister and my grandfather are visiting for Thanksgiving, and my parents have agreed to get a real Christmas tree next month instead of the artificial one we’ve been using for the last few years.

This is all really, really good stuff, folks.

Better yet, I am hitting NaNoWriMo hard and taking no prisoners, except for my inner editor, who is currently drugged and hanging out in a shed somewhere. I’ll release her on December 1st but not one day sooner.

Here’s how the last week went:

Day Job: Lots of work in the archive, lots of notes, lots of thinking. I feel like the pieces of this dissertation are slowly being nudged into place, and it feels good not to rush the process. Spending at least 2 afternoons a week in the archive keeps me accountable, because it means I can’t allow myself to slack off for days and weeks at a time, and it also keeps the information fresh in my mind.

Writing: My October goal was to reach 75k on my fantasy novel by October 31st, before NaNo stole all my energy. I made it to a little over 68k–a bit short of the original goal, but 8k more than I had when this round began.

As I mentioned above, I’m hitting NaNoWriMo hard this year. One thing I’ve learned from past experiences is that I always sputter out mid-month, whether or not I’ve plotted obsessively or decided to pants my way through, and I’m sure the same thing is going to happen to me this time around. My current word count is 8,668, which gives me a couple days’ worth of padding. It’ll come in handy soon enough, because I am going to run out of plot very, very soon, and I’ll need to take a couple of days to sit and brainstorm.

For fun, here’s an excerpt from what I’ve written so far. This is (will hopefully be?) a steampunk/fantasy hybrid, set in the fictional kingdom of Vorewin. This snippet introduces Helena Grey, one of the country’s first female scientists. It is, of course, super rough, but I wanted to share. 😀

Some days, Helena Grey wished that being a trailblazer wasn’t so bloody difficult. Despite what she may have believed in her naive and prosaic youth, there was little glory in becoming a pioneer. Few people trusted pioneers and innovators, and even fewer trusted women who dared to stray from the well-trod path of marriage and motherhood. If she had been wise, Helena would have followed her mother’s advice and done just that: married a local boy, popped out four children in three years, and spent the rest of her days in matronly modesty. It might not have been joy divine, but it would have saved her countless tears and endless heartache.

As it was, she possessed the stalwart stubbornness of her father’s people, and an appalling lack of common sense. At least, that’s what her mother always said. “Disgustingly smart, and without a whit of common sense to go along with it!” were her exact words. Despite Helena’s vociferous protests, she was privately inclined to agree.

Especially on a day like today. If Helena had done as she had been told, she would be warm and snug near the hearth, darning socks or some other such rubbish. She would be safe. Protected. Predictable. Bored, most likely, but was to be expected.

Regardless, she would most definitely not resemble a human icicle, all stiff and frozen and blue, her fingers worn to the bone and her toes threatening to fall off her feet completely. She wouldn’t be bundled in seven layers of wool and cotton and fur. She most definitely wouldn’t be covered in grease, and she certainly wouldn’t be clad in men’s trousers.

Alas, all of these things were true, but as the assistant researcher in the great Dr. James Alexander’s royal laboratory, it was her job to get down and dirty with field tests…

Exercise: My mom, who is my walking buddy, has been a little under the weather, so we only walked 3 days last week. But I have dramatically cut back on all my snacks, and I’m trying to limit portion sizes too. Hopefully we’ll get back to our normal routine next week.

Social Media: I’ve had a fair amount of Facebook and Twitter action, but I haven’t really been at my desk too much in the last week. Once I feel like my NaNo project is under control, I’ll be able to get back to blogging, etc. I have a couple of guest posts that I’ve agreed to do this month, so that will force me back into gear.

Self-care: I’ve had lots of time to myself over the last few days, but I’ve spent most of it furiously writing. My body seems to think it’s in the middle of finals week; I’ve been staying up till the wee hours of the morning to write, waking up around 7 or 8, and starting up again. It definitely isn’t a sustainable way to spend the rest of the month, so I’m really going to focus on setting some boundaries for my writing time.

-oOo-

Is anyone else as excited to see November as I am? Any exciting plans for the new month? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to wave hello to the other ROWers checking in for the week.

ROW80: When a Good Muse Goes Rogue

October 24, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 20 Comments

The good news this week: I’m exercising on a regular basis. I’m hammering out the days that are best for hanging out on FB, Twitter, and G+. I’m getting better at tweeting/liking/promoting people’s blog posts as soon as I finish reading them.

Even better, I’m in the midst of a Work-From-Bed marathon, and it’s really nice. (Napoleon might be enjoying it more than me.)

The bad news: My muse has gone a little cray-cray.

As most of you are probably aware, National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo, aka my favorite month of the year) begins in barely a week. Outlining and prepping my still-untitled steampunk novel has been at the top of my priority list this month, and for the most part it’s gone well.

I’ve got short but solid character bios. I have a name for the country in which the tale is set. I’ve got a brand-new character that emerged out of the ether and refused to leave (the “accidental queen” mentioned below). I even have an incredibly sketchy, incredibly cliched synopsis! Try this on for size:

A horrific attack plunges the nation of Vorewin into a war it is ill-equipped to win. Can two girl geniuses, a reluctant witch, an ambitious soldier, and an accidental queen join forces and save the land?

Masterful, no?

So things are going well… or were going well. Because my muse has decided to jump ship and go rogue.

Never mind this NaNoWriMo thing, she says. What about that fantasy novel you’ve been playing with for a year? I have IDEAS for it.

And hey, she adds, remember how you said you’d never write a contemporary or futuristic novel? I’ve got the BEST idea for a near-future paranormal romance! Then she dangles the carrot: You can even add Pierce to it!

So for the last week or so, I have been frantically scribbling everything that isn’t my NaNoWriMo novel. I have thousands of words worth of brainstorms for how to plug up my many plot holes in PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE (which may be getting a new title one of these days… THE PEACOCK QUEEN, perhaps?). I have all these scrawled pages with ideas for this absolutely ridiculous paranormal romance thing. The heroine even has a name–Falco, a woman who is part bird-shifter and has a very complicated past with Pierce, who is all mysterious and might maybe be a mercenary and/or a magic wielder. With a motorcycle. And leather pants. *fans self*

As far as the next week is concerned, I am going to give in and let my runaway muse have her way. I’ll be hammering out scenes for PEACOCK and jotting down ideas for the paranormal romance. If I can steal a minute or two for other things, I’ll try to massage the NaNo novel. Hopefully by the time November 1st rolls around, I’ll have exhausted the random frenzy that’s taken over my brain.

WriMos, how goes your preparation? Anyone else ever dealt with a muse-gone-rogue?

Be sure to swing by and wave hello to the other ROWers who are checking in today!

ROW80: Is It Me, or Are We Living in Warp-Speed?

October 16, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 14 Comments

What do frogs have to do with anything? Not much, I just like the picture. 😛

Whoa there, folks, it’s apparently hump day already. I’m not quite sure how that happened; last I checked, it was Saturday night and I was making tentative plans for the upcoming week. Hmph.

With that said, it’s time for the mid-week ROW80 check-in! Now that we’re almost 3 weeks into the round, I am happy to say that I think I am coming up with a better system for getting things done.

I am a great lover of structure, so I sat down today and hammered out a general schedule for my day-to-day life. The result is flexible, but will allow me to tackle my major priorities–the day job and my creative work– every day.

Here’s a short update on how things are going so far:

Day Job: I’ve set aside 2 hours each day as Sacred Dissertation Time. Starting next week, Tuesdays-Thursdays will be spent digging around in archives, so Mondays and Fridays will be devoted to writing up research memos and revising my proposal.

Writing: I’ve also decided that I need to have my 1 hour #teamsprinty happytimes each day, so I’ve set up the schedule to keep 11 am-12 pm free. This is a really good thing, as I’ve missed most sprints for the last few months, and it always leaves me feeling a little off-balance.

Brainstorming for NaNoWriMo is the only priority as far as writing is concerned. Right now I’m hammering out backstory and character biographies, keeping an eye open for any flashes of inspiration for that elusive middle. Overall, I’m trying to trust the process, and to know that my muse, despite her fickleness, will bring me a feast of ideas when I least expect it.

Exercise: The walking schedule has been amended to 5 miles/day, Sunday-Tuesday and Friday. I’ll try to supplement with Pilates or something on Thursdays, but as far as I am concerned, that’s more than enough exercise for me. 😛

One of the many wildlife sightings on the morning walk.

Social Media: Okay, I dusted off Google Reader the other day and opened it… and almost passed out from the sight of my 1000+ unread blog posts. However, I still think that using the RSS reader is the best way for me to keep up with blog posts at my own pace, rather than trying to constantly catch up with Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Here on Flights of Fancy, I continued with my poetry celebration series with a piece on self-proclaimed “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde. It’s a post that I’m proud of, one that I’ve dedicated to “those who have ever been afraid to speak,” as it addresses Lorde’s work on fear, silence, and the importance of speaking one’s truth.

Self-Care: One of the things that I’ve been reminded over the last couple of weeks is that I have a very, very hard time putting my needs over the needs of others. Part of impetus for creating a daily schedule is rooted in ensuring that I take the time each day to take care of myself first. That includes tackling my responsibilities, along with having time for naps, journaling, and relaxation. Setting up those boundaries and preserving time for myself will, I hope, keep me from getting too run-down and burnt out.

-oOo-

Has anyone else been refining or reevaluating their goals? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to check in with the other ROWers this week.

ROW80: The NaNoWriMo Brainstorming Has Begun!

October 14, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 12 Comments

Happy Sunday, everyone! It’s time for another update for ROW80, the writing challenge “that knows you have a life.” My life, thankfully, has slowed down a bit over the last few days. Progress towards my goals feels fairly steady, and given my love of structure and routine, this is a very good thing.

As I’ve mentioned in past updates, I’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming and journaling. I’ve been thinking about quite a bit about creativity, in particular how the creative impulse must be satisfied in order to have a full and healthy life. I’ve also been thinking about the crucial nature of community, like our group of wonderful ROW80 participants. This quote from WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES by Clarissa Pinkola Estes really hits home for me:

Creativity is not a solitary movement. That is its power. Whatever is touched by it, whoever hears it, sees it, senses it, knows it, is fed. That is why beholding someone else’s creative word, image, idea, fills us up, inspires us to our own creative work. A single creative act has the potential to feed a continent. One creative act can cause a torrent to break through stone.

I love the thought that “a single creative act has the potential to feed a continent,” especially on those days when all I can manage to write is a small haiku, or a couple of sentences towards the WIP. It’s the little stuff that matters, and even if I can’t devote hours to honing my craft, it feels so darn good to write just a little.

And with that, here’s how the past week went:

Day Job: Work in the archives continues. I’ve been writing up research memos based on my findings so far, which are further refining my research interests. This week’s highlight: I got a chance to sit in on a meeting of all the archivists from the Catholic sisterhoods here in the Bay Area. They represented the oldest communities in the area, all of the founded in the 1850s and 1860s. Listening to their discussions of the joys and challenges of maintaining archives was fascinating, and gave me a few dozen more ideas for future research. 😛

Writing: I finally started brainstorming my NaNoWriMo novel! Better yet, I even created a Scrivener file for it and laid out the first 14 scenes, complete with summaries and the bits and pieces of dialogue that keep cropping up in my head. At the moment the story lacks both a title and, er, a middle, but I know how it starts and how it ends. I figure the rest will fall into place by the time November begins.

The poetry challenge continues, and so far I’ve written 11 out of 14. I had a couple of favorites this week: “Stolen Morning,” which was just sweet and gentle and lovely to write, and “The Old Mysteries,” which reminded me how useful poetry can be for expressing those feelings that can’t be spoken or written in prose.

Exercise: I walked a total of 4 days this week, and it feels sooooo good. The trick, of course, is to stick with it and not slack off, the way that I always do. But I have decided to take it one week at a time, and hopefully that will help.

Social Media: I wrote 1 non-ROW80 blog post this week, and I was really pleased with it. It was about what happens when an author falls in love with her creations, and it gave me a chance to celebrate my favorite character’s birthday. 😀

It was a slow week with Twitter, etc., as I am settling in over at WANAtribe (my profile’s here, so feel free to friend me!). I’m retaking Kristen Lamb’s “Blogging to Build a Brand” course, so I’ve been trying to get to know all of my classmates.

Self-care: I’m going into hibernation mode, my way of recovering from all the fun social time I’ve had over the last couple of weeks. There is still lots of writing and soul-searching happening, with quite a few breakthroughs. All of this is very, very good (and will potentially keep me from having a super horrible quarter-life crisis, lol).

The Pygmalion Effect, or When Fictional Creations Steal Your Heart

October 12, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 8 Comments

It’s something that we’ve all done before: fallen in love with a fictional character.

Really, how can anyone be expected to resist the well-written character? They are vibrant, compelling, imbued with an energy that, at times, defies rational understanding. They leap off the page, demand our attention, and come to life in our imaginations.

They come to dwell within us; even after the book is long finished, we carry them around in our heads and hearts, maybe even sigh over them from time to time. They become old friends, and our lives are enriched because of them.

Sound familiar?

I covered my favorite fictional heroes about a year ago, but lately I’ve been thinking about the flip-side: how easy it is for a writer to fall in love with her creation.

Confession: This is something that I do on a regular basis, but I have one character who’s the alpha male among my collection of very attractive, very delicious heroes. Pierce is “my favorite mistake,” and since October 12th is his birthday, I thought I’d poke at this idea a bit further.

Pygmalion sculptant Galatée (Primatice) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If ancient myths are to be trusted, then we can assume that artists have been falling in love with their creations for eons. Anyone remember poor Pygmalion, the sculptor who fashions a statue so exquisitely beautiful that he falls desperately in love with it? As Ovid describes in his Metamorphoses,

[Pygmalion] took to art,
Ingenious as he was, and made a creature
More beautiful than any girl on earth,
A miracle of ivory in a statue,
So charming that it made him fall in love.
Her face was life itself; she was a darling—
And yet too modest to permit advances
Which showed his art had artful touches in it,
The kind of art that swept him off his feet;
He stroked her arms, her face, her sides, her shoulder.
Was she alive or not? He could not tell.

Pygmalion is so taken with his statue that he can’t quite tell the difference between fantasy and reality. His actions become, shall we say, a little unhinged. He brings “her” presents, decorates her with jewelry, pretends she’s his wife. He even tucks her into bed next to him where she sleeps “On cloth of purple, as if she shared his dreams,/Her head at rest upon a feathered pillow.”

Of course, I really can’t judge. I may not have, er, taken my fictional characters to bed with me, but we spend a lot of time together. They’re like my imaginary friends. I plot their lives, figure out their deepest wishes and desires, send them on adventures, periodically find ways to torture them, and eventually give them what they want.

Charming, right?

I know my characters better than I know my own family. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but we’re close. So it shouldn’t be surprising that, like Pygmalion, I constantly crush on my heroes.

Hugh Jackman at the X-Men Origins: Wolverine p...

Hugh Jackman was the inspiration for Pierce. (Photo credit: Grant Brummett; Photo Source: Wikipedia)

None of them, however, have managed to get under my skin the way that Pierce has.

He really wasn’t supposed to. 10 years ago I was in the middle of a silly story starring all of my friends and me, this ridiculous little drabble about what we’d be like as grown-up people. Pierce was originally a minor character, introduced to create a very cliche love-triangle and inject a bit of tension into the story.

But sometimes (okay, often), those of us who write find that our creations take on a will and a mind of their own. In this case, Pierce flexed his considerable muscles and decided to stay. I couldn’t get rid of him.

Pierce was initially inspired by Hugh Jackman (they share a birthday) and his various roles. I infused him with Leopold’s old-fashioned charm and sense of honor, Wolverine’s love of motorcycles, and Eddie Alden’s wit, but over the last decade, he’s grown far beyond his origins.

Somewhere along the way, Pierce has become a healer, a painter, a gardener, a man protects and guards those who come his way. He’s responsible, steadfast, and serious–sometimes a little too serious for his own good.

Despite the many ridiculous situations I’ve thrown him into, I’ve realized that there’s a single constant: he begins his adventure without full knowledge of his powers and talents. He runs from his destiny, but he’s eventually forced into it by the woman whose fate is entwined with his.

So yay, Pierce, and happy birthday!

Birthday Cake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But let’s wander back to Pygmalion for a moment. Unlike most artists, he receives the ultimate gift: the godess Venus takes pity on him and brings his statue to life. Ovid tells us that she even comes “down to be their guest at wedding/And blessed them both.” Not a bad ending for a guy that probably seemed a few screws loose to the rest of his family and friends. 😛

So what say you, friends?

Are there any fictional characters–either ones you’ve invented or ones that you’re drawn to from your favorite books/movies/television shows–that you’d like to see come to life?

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy