Category: writing

I’m still in the recovery stage from simultaneous flu and sinus infection. Illnesses with fevers give me strange dreams and, since I tend to drift in and out of sleep at those times, I remember more of the images. Thinking about the dreams reveals a little about my life. For one particular dream, it showed not only some of my frustrations, but how my writing life blurs with my day job.

I pay the bills by teaching computer programming at a local college. One of the most difficult parts to teach is data abstraction. For programmers, like everyone else, abstraction is when you boil down a class of things into the characteristics common to all instances of that class. A software developer who can define classes really well becomes a very efficient, capable programmer capable of making software for almost any purpose. Teaching people to think this way is a pain in the backside and a source of great frustration.

In my dream, I stood before an unknown class in an unknown classroom, trying to get them to find the common features from a set of scenarios. Every time I got them to see the commonality of one part, they seemed to lose any previous understanding.

The scenarios were actually scenes from a screenplay. Each scene had:

• a location
• a time
• a primary character
• a message for the primary character
• a secondary character who misunderstood the significance of the message
• a reference to the next scene, i.e.: where to go next.

This sounds like a scene to most people I know, and at the same time, it seems like a record or class definition to most programmers I know. Why were my mystery students so confounded by the idea and why did it frustrate me so?

During the semester, I write negligible amounts; the day job takes too much time. When I don’t write for a while, it makes me cranky. If there is any psychological interpretation of the dream, I guess it is probably about the lack of writing I do when class is in session. It makes sense. During the summer break, I can turn out five thousand (first draft) words a day. When classes start, I can occasionally find time to knock out a couple of hundred. My brain is just too locked down on the subjects I teach.

At some point, I will have to find a way to maintain balance so I can write throughout the year. It will be good, but may take a while. Maybe when all my courses have stabilized and the supporting materials are all in place, the day job won’t take up so much of my time. Until then, it’s occasional short poems and writing notes till break.

As for the screenplay in the dream; that was disturbing too. Apparently, my subconscious mind has developed opening scenes for a very dark, gritty version of Saban Capital Group’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers™. The location for each scene is where a previous Ranger died in battle. The people showing up and getting a message are the teens selected to become the new Rangers.

The people misinterpreting the messages were relatives of the deceased Rangers. One thought the message meant the new Ranger had just killed the Black Ranger, his big brother. Another listener thought the new Ranger was the reincarnation of her Red Ranger son who died in a battle so long ago.

The Power Rangers show arrived long after my morning cartoon age, so I have no idea why my brain picked and developed this story. There is probably a reason, but I may not want to know it. For now, I’ll stick to my self-analysis regarding work-life balance.

One of the things I most looked forward to on my trip to Minnesota was getting a critique of the first ten pages of my novel. Due to a scheduling mix up, I didn’t get to talk with the agent, but she did send a written critique. That written critique really brightened my day.

The critique itself was short and direct. There were a few things I needed to clarify about the settings and the date when the story takes place. It was also suggested that I introduce my hero earlier in the piece, even if only briefly. The rest described those first ten pages as, “Eerie, startling, and intriguing…”

The previous agent feedback was also positive, but it mentioned a big flaw. My novel started well before the story did. I had that on my list of things to check, but it can be difficult to be objective. That agent said it was good writing in general, but the story would not convince someone to part with the money or time to read it. With that feedback, I set about the rewrite at what I thought would be the correct place.

Still, my confidence really needed fed; my submissions since the rewrite brought home no responses. This new feedback suggests that I need to keep trying. I need to make the needed changes and try again. I will also need to keep working on my query letter (critiqued by someone else and I’m still analyzing).

With my semester in full swing, I may not have the time to make the changes for a while. In the worst case, I will have to wait till the middle of May. If I schedule my time right, I might be able to get it done before then and start submitting sooner rather than later. It will be a constant fight between the manic need to write and the exhausted need to sleep and keep the bills paid.

I just returned from the Minnesota Writing Workshop in St. Paul. Many of my writing friends have always said they enjoyed their experiences at writing workshops and conferences. I wish my experiences had been like theirs.

There are usually two parts of the workshops: seminars and meetings with agents. Because the workshops have to pay for themselves, there is a basic charge to attend and then secondary charges for the meetings with the agents. These charges can add up quickly, so you want them to count. If you have to travel and stay in a hotel, like I did, the expenses grow even more.

For this conference, the sessions were definitely not worth any money. Most of them involved a speaker with unstated qualifications telling us the basic writing facts that you can get from any book, magazine, blog, or any other source in the writing and publishing world. The exception was the woman who explained that you should the twenty-some years starting in college to make writing friends and contacts, and then make sure you took a half hour now and then to watch television. Oh, and she loves her cats. There were regular mentions of her cats.

Discounting the sessions, there is the agent feedback. The first bit of feedback came in an email. This was a critique of my query letter. I was hoping to talk with the person who provided that feedback, but was told no by someone who seemed really far to busy to answer questions from someone who paid to attend. The answering questions thing would continue to be an issue.

Due to other miscommunication when asking questions, I also missed the critique of the first ten pages of my manuscript. This was the part that I really wanted, and it didn’t happen. What’s more, when I tried to get more information about what happened, the untrained volunteer seemed confused.

The result of this communication was that I was presented with a pitch session when I was expecting my critique. For those not familiar, a pitch session is when you sit down in front of an actual agent and try to sell them your story. This is a good time to shine. However, if you are expecting to do something else, it can catch you off guard and, though you will leave an impression, you will not shine in any way.

Now, the agent in the pitch session seemed to be very understanding, and she gave what advice she could. I appreciate that and hope to review it and use it. That was at least a pleasant aspect of the trip.

Overall, the Minnesota Writers’ Workshop was an unpleasant and expensive experience. It was nowhere near worth the money or time and I will not be attending any others put on by the same group. It was obvious that the people running the workshop were disorganized and had made little effort to train their volunteers. The two, small pieces of advice I received from the event may prove useful someday, but I still think the whole thing was a waste of resources.

When my friend suggested that I should focus on writing horror, it bothered me (see my previous post). I wondered what I did in life to make a friend associate me with things that most people see as sinister or unnerving. This drove me to review my life and compare it with my writing. It turns out, he is not the first to make the suggestion.

Years ago, I belonged to a very productive writers’ group. The group lasted eleven years and I joined in its third month. During that time, I learned much about writing and managed to turn out quite a bit. I believed at the time that my main area of writing would probably be science fiction or fantasy. That was laziness on my part; if I could make up my own world I wouldn’t have to spend much time learning all the facts about the real one.

A Request

One day, a friend from the writers’ group asked me for some help. She was writing a short story involving a mother and daughter arguing over the daughter’s choice of music. The mother hated that the daughter listened to a song about a female serial killer. My friend said she didn’t know any such song and asked if I did. I didn’t even know where to start looking for one, so my friend asked if I could write one. Five minutes later, I handed over the lyrics to a song called Surgeon Sally.

There are three relevant things to this story. First, my friend assumed that I would be the one to know about serial killer songs. Second, when I didn’t know, she assumed that I could write the lyrics to one. Third, and probably most disturbing, is that I actually did and it took me no time at all. I have since rewritten the lyrics and am planning to set them to music.

A Challenge

Remembering this occurrence, I looked for others. I found them. One night in my writers’ group, we had all the core members, many of the peripheral members, and a couple of new people attend. The crowd numbered around forty. Unfortunately, our stack of things to critique had run dry and we needed something to discuss. This usually meant someone would offer up a poem they could read for the group. One of the new people took the challenge.

This poor girl, probably about fifteen, presented her poem. It was a standard, teenage angst, death poem in the standard dirge style. I felt sorry for her because she received a very thorough, constructive critique from a large crowd of people who were genuinely interested in helping her.

The members asked the general questions. Could you tell us more? Everyone knows that death is sad, but what was particularly sad about this one? What made this death worthy of a poem? Why pick a dirge style instead of some other poetic style?

The topic of styles got many of the writers to suggest different poetic styles and their various merits and applicability to death poetry. Then someone said the name Dr. Seuss.

The entire group went quiet and turned to look at me.

I was not the one who said it.

Over the next few minutes, they delivered to me a challenge. Write a death poem in the style of Dr. Seuss. It needed to address all the questions they had directed to that poor teenaged girl. How did the death happen? What were its details? Why was it important? Tell us about the decedent.

The meeting ended that night at midnight and I finished the poem around two in the morning. The title of the poem is Bernie the Bhoozel Kicks the Can. Crowds who’ve heard me read it aloud start with smiles and end with looks of horror and disgust. I’m very proud of it.

This incident follows the same pattern as the serial killer one, but with a slight twist. In this case, the idea of death was a generic thing among the group. It wasn’t until someone added something inappropriate to the topic that the group turned to me. Still, the turning was universal and instantaneous. It was naturally assumed that I could generate this happy, sing-song abomination. Like in the earlier situation, I did and without any great effort.

Over Analysis

These two situations, and I could probably find others, mixed with the comments from my friend, seem to suggest a pattern that people pick up in my personality. Without getting too heavy into my entirely subjective take on my psychology, I have to assume that I say or do things that help people associate this darkness with me. Somehow, they think, “I need a morbid, twisted, death thing. I should talk to Bob.”

It doesn’t bother me if they do this. What bothers me is that I cannot see it well enough to be able to use it profitably. It is always a good idea to minimize one’s weaknesses and capitalize on one’s strengths. If this perception is something that comes to me naturally, I need to find a way to channel it constructively.

To that end, I’ve changed some of my reading. I’m putting more emphasis on horror and suspense: magazines such as Cemetery Dance, and authors more in the vein of Stephen King. I’ve also been reading a bit about the mechanics of suspense and horror. We will have to see how that goes.

One thing that worries me a little is the tone of my writing. Even when I write about horrible things, it usually has an upbeat quality to it. There may be monsters, but they are bubbly, excited monsters. After all, a well-fed monster is a happy monster.

In a recent conversation with an old friend, for whom I used to work, he suggested that I focus my writing on horror. This came as a surprise. This fellow is not one of my writing friends and has not read any of my fiction. We haven’t discussed horror or anything of the kind, so I started to wonder, what made him think I would be better at writing horror.

In the past, I have tried writing some horror. I had an idea for what I thought would be a good horror story, but I don’t usually read horror. The plan was to read horror stories, do some research, and then figure out how to tell my tale. That involved some practice prose with dark settings and general unpleasantness. Still, most of my writing did not go that way.

The main reason I don’t usually read horror is that I don’t get it. Horror writing said to unsettle others has no effect on me. It always seems hokey or forced. The characters do horribly stupid things and walk blindly into danger. In many cases, I just hope for the bad thing to take out the victims quickly to end the tale and let me go onto something else.

The things that would frighten me are tales where stupid people in large numbers overwhelm someone who cannot fight back sufficiently. Stories like that can leave me more unsettled than a story of monsters or serial killers. None of this explains why my friend recommended a focus on horror.

Obviously, he thinks there is something about my personality or worldview that could frighten others. We have differences of opinion on many matters; we once discussed that I have an easier time firing someone than he does, once it has been deemed necessary. He has laughed at plenty of my jokes over the years, though he hasn’t really told the same kind.

It is also notable that, though plenty of people seem to like me, many more like him. He is a very popular manager whereas few people want to follow me for long. I’m more of the problem solver that needs to meander on to the next problem when it’s done. He has an active social life, a wife, and kids. I have friends that I see occasionally. That may be a clue.

He may be thinking that I am odd enough to think strange things that unsettle others. My ability to solve problems by seeing both sides would mean that I could probably see the monster’s point of view and articulate it. A history of somewhat pragmatic, and sometimes harsh, solutions may provide a story that others are less comfortable with.

Back when I did experiment with horror, my writing friends seem to approve of the outcomes. For one piece, I was slapped by a couple of them because they read it just before bed. Those kinds of feedback suggest that my friend may be correct.

I guess it’s time to start putting more darkness to paper.