Cross-training in creativity

I have been quiet lately, as I’ve warned, because I’ve just finished one of the most rewarding events of my year: Missouri Hope, the major Emergency and Disaster Management training where I live. As I’ve said before, I’m the moulage coordinator, which means I supervise a half-dozen people in making our roleplayers look suitably injured. I also moulage, usually the most complex injuries — although this year, my crew did me proud by simulating impalements, open fractures, and eviscerations on their own.

I’ve been thinking about cross-training. Cross-training is the practice of incorporating physical exercise in areas other than one’s primary sport or exercise regimen. It’s incorporating cardio with weightlifting or walking with running. Without cross-training, one set of muscles can overdevelop while another set weakens, destroying stride, balance, and strength.

Do writers need to cross-train? I think so, especially when suffering from writers’ block. There are many creative arts, some soothing, some complex, some simple. I would suggest activities that have a little bit of challenge so as not to be boring, while providing a sense of mastery, because these activities add an important quality to your life — that of flow, a type of active meditation.

I don’t want to put journaling in here, because that exercises the same muscles. But how about knitting or crocheting, fingerpainting, sketching, sidewalk chalking, dancing, karate, crafts, mask-making, improv, or — or moulage? 🙂

Feedback and Creativity

This is a quick entry before I go off to make volunteers look like victims:

Last night at the Missouri Hope (disaster exercise) training, we discussed the model of learning we use in the exercise: Put the team into an unique and overwhelming situation, step aside to see how they handle it, and advise when they get stuck.

The key, however, is that how you give the feedback is vitally important, because insensitive feedback can create problems in the disaster scenario and, worse, hinder learning and the willingness to develop further.

For example, “You could do better” is content-free, offering a judgement without supplying any advice.

Obviously, “That was a stupid thing to do” merely insults the learner and suggests they may as well not try again.

“That was good, but …” People ignore everything before the word “but”, so it sounds much like #1 above.

“Don’t do that?” Just don’t do that.

Good critiques inform the client factually of corrective actions. “It would work better here if you would …” or “Think about …”

The training session had me reminiscing to that moment in my college poetry class where I quit being creative for many years: The time my poetry professor called one of my poems “greeting-card trash”. Now that I’m older, I realize that not even professors are infallible, and many are just plain mean and ugly. But at age 20, I took it so hard that I didn’t let anyone read my work for years.

I still wrote, but in hiding, only lsharin my stuff in that brief stint as singer-songwriter (until I divorced my guitarist). I had lost the joy of creating, and I started my career as a professor with very little balance. I had become half of myself.

It took marrying Richard, I think, to bring me back to my creative self. The strange thing is that Richard is an aspiring writer, but doesn’t think he’s creative. He is; just not as flamboyant as I am. He loves being silly, and I think he should write children’s chapbooks with illustrations for the rest of his life. In that atmosphere, my creativity came back, because I could try new things in a safe atmosphere and use feedback to hone my skills.

Traits and States and Characters

Note: Tomorrow through Sunday I will be busy leading and doing Moulage at Missouri Hope, a grueling schedule out in the middle of a county park’s low maintenance/challenge course area. I don’t know if I will have the time, energy, or bandwidth to write installations. I’d love to find the time, because life in the moulage tent tends to be a gruesome party as well as a learning experience.
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In psychology, particularly in personality psychology, behaviors and feelings can be categorized in two ways: traits and states.

Traits are behaviors and feelings that are stable over time; they are patterns and behaviors. For those of us who write, traits are items that we document in a character sheet. So we have characters who are introverted or extroverted, quiet or loud, amused or hostile, mellow or excitable (all of these actually fall on a spectrum; there are few total introverts or total extroverts). These are modes we see our characters in day-to-day, and that we describe often through actions, facial expressions and body language, and verbal expressions.

States are behaviors and feelings that result from situations and motives at one point in time. They’re fleeting. When the situation resolves, or the motive is realized or released, the state resolves as well. Again, as writers, we express these through actions, facial expressions and body language, and verbal expressions. (Note: It’s better to show feelings in writing by describing than simply stating “I’m mad”.)

One way to think of states is that they’re the behavior that results from challenge, whether that be conflict, threat, or change.

A demonstration of traits versus states:

Jill sat on the floor in the living room in sweats and bunny slippers, her legs sprawled out in front of her, her back propped up against the couch. She sat with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, watching Next Generation on Netflix with her roommate Emma, who sat on the couch.

“Data,” Jill sighed as she passed the bowl up to Emma, “I want to marry Data.”

“Jill,” Emma pointed out dryly, “Data is an android.”

“Yeah, but he’d never piss me off, would he?” Jill joked.

*****

Jill doesn’t face any sort of challenge. Her natural personality — the traits — show up here. She’s laid-back (her posture on the couch, her happy sigh), her bonding with Emma (the popcorn bowl), her sense of humor (wanting to marry Data).

Let’s introduce a challenge:

Jeff strolled in on his lanky legs, puppy in tow. The scar on his cheek accentuated the cold look in his eyes. Jill stiffened up as Jeff towered over her.

“Jeff, do you have the rent for me yet?” Jill asked after a deep breath. “You owe three months now.”

Jill glanced up to see Jeff scrutinize her little black cat sprawled on a chair. She felt a chill as Jeff’s face twisted into an arrogant pout and he casually offered, “It would be a shame if that cat wound up dead one morning.”

Jill felt herself stand as if pulled by strings; she strode up to Jeff and got in his face, spearing his gaze as if she was his long-ago drill sergeant. Her voice turned to ice despite her internal trembling: “If you so much as lay a finger on my cat, I will take your puppy, I will strangle it, I will cut it up and feed it to you, and you will think it’s chicken.” Jill turned on her heel and stalked out before Jeff could see she was bluffing.
******

Jill has just gone from easygoing to menacing because of a threat to her cat. She carries it off despite the fact she is shaking internally, almost as if she’s possessed. But this is not her normal state — it’s just what she’s pressed to do.

******

When focusing on state-based behavior (i.e. behavior as the result of a challenge), it has to be believable — wrapped in trait behavior and an incident that proves the change has a reason. It also helps if the character has to examine the change in the behavior:

Jill stood in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. She saw her pale face, but she knew t that was not the face that had faced Jeff. She had felt only fury, fury she didn’t know she had, fury that she could channel into lethal ice. She knew she would never kill the puppy, much less cook him for dinner. But she would never let Jeff know that, or else she would fall into danger again.

******

Study yourself. What would you consider your traits? What are some situations that have had you “not acting like yourself” — in other words, personality states?

Fresh Eyes

(Note: Polish reader, if I email you some Polish dialogue translated by Google Translate, will you tell me if it makes any sense to you in Polish? It would also help if you could give me the corrections.)

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Yesterday I discovered the marvel that is looking at a Work in Progress with fresh eyes.

After work, Richard and I spent time at the local corporate coffeehouse to play with ideas for NaNo. The neutral walls are plastered with glossy posters of their wares and perky, pithy sayings in vinyl decals made at the home office. I prefer independent coffeehouses with their quirky rustic walls and hand-chalked menus paying homage to local institutions, but the nearest one is 45 miles away.

This story starts with the fact that I have two computers, and one of them is more likely to travel with me. I discovered I couldn’t get access to Whose Hearts are Mountains because it was open in Scrivener at home, a feature to prevent conflicted copies on two different computers.

So, as not to waste valuable coffee time, I pulled up the document I set aside to start a new novel for NaNo. That novel is Prodigies, and I was almost halfway done when I shelved it. Plotwise, that was the easier half, although I think my protagonists spend too much time running and I may have to go back and fix it.

When looking at it with fresh eyes, however, the questions began rushing through my head: “What if the mind control was a distraction? What if the little girl had her father’s healing talent and could use it in reverse? What is the implication of doing this to a young girl?” This could raise the stakes of the plot — who could you kill at the UN General Assembly meeting that would reduce the world to an exploitable chaos?

I also found two resources I hadn’t been able to find before — the floor for the UN Assembly Building and the UN Assembly schedule, which will make writing this story much easier.

I may have learned a valuable lesson here — sometimes putting something away for a while works better than beating your head against it. Lesson two — work on more than one idea at a time.

Short post — Moulage and External Validation

I may not be writing as much this week, because this is my big week for performing moulage. If I haven’t mentioned it, moulage is casualty simulation for emergency workers. This week I do two events — a small one this morning where I help out with the high school’s annual docudrama where they hammer home the consequences of drinking/texting while driving. Richard and I will moulage seven high schoolers.

This Friday-Sunday is the big event, Missouri Hope. The biggest of the Hope exercises held by Consortium for Humanitarian Service and Education, we will moulage about 200 people by the time we’re done. I will have a bigger crew, perhaps 8 per day, and I will provide hands-on training while we create victims — all simulated injuries of course — of a major tornado so that emergency personnel and students can use their skills in a realistic scenario.

I have developed a reputation for this among the CHSE exercises, which makes me happy. I know I can do better, and I always try to do better. In that way, it’s like writing, but I feel more secure about it because I have external validation. And external validation is one of the biggest motivators there is.

My colleagues call me the Queen of Gore. What better external validation is that?

PS: Light and dark

You believe you know me because we have laughed together on a golden afternoon, as the first of autumn’s leaves turn gold and tumble lazily.

You do not know me until you have walked with me through sodden leaves on a night where the wind whips sleet in your face and white-hot forks of lightning bleed into your vision. Here, I am a witch, the child of the storm; I stand on a hill singing to the maelstrom.

You’ve only seen me laugh. I laugh because I’ve screamed; I smile because I’ve raged; I champion the wounded because I’ve been beaten. I rejoice because I have survived.

You cannot honor my light without accepting my darkness.

These are a few of my favorite words …

I learned to read at age three. I did not go charging out the gate reading at an adult level — in fact,
I’m told I spent a couple refusing to read anything that didn’t have pictures on one side of the page. Still, I was ahead of my classmates once I reached kindergarten — “The Little Engine that Could? I read that LAST year.” My poor teacher didn’t know whether to yell or laugh.

By the time I was seven, I could read the front page of the paper and Readers’ Digest. In other words, I read at a sixth-grade level. I did not always comprehend at a sixth-grade level. The sentence “Drop for drop, a bee’s venom is more venomous than that of a cobra” sent me screaming to my mom with, “The bees are going to kill us!” It took my mom some time to explain that “drop for drop” to my satisfaction.

The case I’m trying to make is that I’ve had a lot of time to accumulate words — big words, small words, words in other languages, archaic words. I’d like to share a few of my favorite words here:

Flabbergasted — astonishment with a sense of speechlessness and probably some discomfort. My sister once asked my mother why I used the word ‘flabbergasted’ when surprised was a perfectly good word. Mom came to my rescue, “I’m surprised when someone gives me a present. I’m flabbergasted when someone drops their drawers in front of me.”

Eke — to support oneself with difficulty or to allocate scarce supplies. An old word, “eked” is elegant in its simplicity — “He eked out a living in the desert.”

Defenestrate — to throw out a window. Too specific? The official definition suggests that a person is the proper object of defenestration, but I have threatened to defenestrate my computer at various times.

Palaver — prolonged and idle discussion; also the name of a type of African sauce made from pulverized greens and spices and served over rice, fufu, or dumplings. I have encountered both definitions; the latter makes for tasty food.

Vitriol — I hated Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series. My father did as well — he suggested killing off the main character in the first chapter and saving us all some annoyance. But the few pages I read introduced me to a perfectly good word — vitriol, which means cruel and bitter criticism. I think Donaldson used it for every little rant, however, so I’m not sure he used it correctly. He loved the word, though.

Caterwaul — the shrill wailing a cat makes. You can hear the noise when you read the word, can’t you?

Mystique — I love the sound, I love the look, I love the idea of the word, which means the air of mystery someone or something carries. I, myself, have no mystique, being an open book with the words “Ask Me Anything” across the spine.

I’m looking for more words. Drop me a response with one of your favorite words (English or not) with definitions!

Open Questions and Characters Again: Conflict

My character sheets — the ones from Scrivener — have two categories on them that I’m not happy with: Character’s internal conflicts, and Character’s external conflicts. I fill them with short, telegraphic statements:

William’s conflicts: Internally — because he deserted his lover, who was killed 18 years later; Externally — With his employer, Free White State; with Jude, who he feels is hiding something.

Jude’s conflicts: Internally — For not fitting in with other Archetypes/Folk; Externally: With his Archetype parents, for deserting him; With the Commune, for sheltering humans and Nephilim; With Free White State, for moving slowly with their plan.

One of these is a flawed good guy; the other is a sympathetic bad guy. How can you tell?

Conflicts can cause anger, fear, fury, hopelessness; sadness; and many other emotions. Can you tell what emotions come up with each conflict? You can assume, and you might be wrong, even if they’re your characters.

Conflicts can stir up desires for reconciliation, revenge, murder, wallowing in self-pity, petty bickering and passive-aggressive snapping — and more. Do any of the segments above give this impression? No!

I want to feel my characters — their loves, their dislikes, their conflicts — so I’m about to take another approach: Open-ended questions.

*****

Me: Jude, tell me about your conflict with your parents.

Jude: I understand that in InterSpace, engendered children seldom have contact with their parents after engendering. But they’re quickly apprised of their purpose — or were, until the Council of the Oldest gave the humans their cultural memories back. Archetypes engendered Earthside — that is, from the renegades — have contact with their parents and other Archetypes, at least occasionally. I was left in a privy, the abandoned result of unauthorized intercourse between two Archetypes. There I was, a freak who served no purpose and who was born fully adult. I would kill my father if he hadn’t already died saving the humans. I don’t know why they deserved more than I did.

Now, for a similar situation with William:

Me: Tell me about your conflict with your parents.

William: My situation was interesting. Six thousand years ago. the Archetypes calling themselves the Triumvirate staged the Garden of Eden in order to control society’s women, and thus the entire society, through religion. The Triumvirate engendered a male Archetype called Adam and a female Nephilim — half-human — called Eve. You may know the story. What you probably don’t know is that a couple Archetypes — Su and her apprentice Luke — engendered a female Archetype named after an older legend than Adam and Eve, called Lilith. Adam chose Lilith, not Eve, as his consort, and the Triumvirate tried to get Lilith, but not Adam, killed. Adam and Lilith went into hiding Earthside.

At that point, my parents, the female Norwegian Archetype and the male Bering Strait Archetype, decided to subtly go rogue, vowing to stand against the Triumvirate just as Luke and Su had. They had me in defiance, and placed me among the Aleut. What I discovered was that parentage among Archetypes was as nothing, the humans held parentage in great esteem. Not only did I not know my parents, but I couldn’t speak of them because Archetypes were not open to the humans.

Someday I will demand an explanation from my parents.

****

So different, huh? It’s a lot of work, but I’m getting a good idea of the characters, their conflicts, and how they intend to deal with things. I may not do this for all the characters, but the main ones: Anna, Daniel, Jude (listed above), MariJo, and William. Especially Daniel, because all he is right now is aLove Interest. (Although it would be a nice way to counter all those useless female love interests endemic in fantasy, comics, and damn near everything else written, I will not put Daniel into that spot.)

I have my work cut out for me today, and what I really need is to hole up in a coffee shop and start talking to my characters.

Empathy in an Age of Hatred

Last year in November, I participated in NaNoWriMo — until the presidential election. To a nation’s horror, 45 — many of us do not say his name — won the election, and the concept of empathy toward those not white, male, and Christian seemed to die overnight. Hate speech immediately blossomed like black, fetid flowers; Latino/as, Moslems, women, immigrants, liberals and anyone with empathy were targeted with jeers and threats, and sometimes by physical violence.

I did not win NaNo last year; I couldn’t write after that day. The world I fought for — where each person’s uniqueness was valued — seemed to have died overnight. I felt my life was imminently in danger, because once I had been targeted for violence for being different. Many people — those who hadn’t answered their traumas with aggressive hatreds — kept on keeping on in those days while cowering within themselves. Those with aggressive hatreds rejoiced. Others ignored the Nazi flags and assumed that since the world would be alright for them, everyone would be fine.

Many writers, it turned out, have had trouble writing in the aftermath of the last presidential election. In the internet article Writing Fiction after Trump (2016), written in the aftermath of the election, the author interviewed several literary writers about writing post-election. Many, like me, struggled, with one author, James Scott, expressing that he couldn’t pull up the empathy to do so.

I eventually got back to writing, after I quit cowering under my bed — figuratively, not literally. I talked myself out from under my bed because the white supremacists and the pussy-grabbers and the so-called rebels wanting to take the country back to slavery needed someone to stand against them. I write, and have always written, to oppose hatred of those who are not like us.

To show empathy, with the best of my words, with the best of my skill, with the best of my humility, is why I write.

Tuch, B. (2016). Writing fiction after Trump. Available: http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/writing-fiction-after-trump-how-do-writers-d [October 7, 2017].

Elevator Pitches

This morning, I worked on what are known as elevator pitches. These are short hooks that should encapsulate the book and interest the agent or publisher to reach further. They’re so named because one could describe their book to an agent trapped in an elevator with them between the first and second floor.

I don’t trap agents in elevators often — actually, not at all. I use elevator pitches in a semi-annual event called #PitchMad on Twitter. When IS the next #PitchMad?

Some people use the “Bambi Meets Godzilla” format, but I’m not inclined to do that — I don’t think “Tolkien meets Mad Max” is really a good hook for my stuff. (Yes, the current work in progress could conceivably be described as such.)

Some people use the phrase “In a world in which…” which turns agents off because it sounds like it should be read aloud in Radio Announcer voice.

So these are my pitches (any agents reading, take note:)

Voyageurs: The past holds a secret that could change the future.

Gaia’s Hands: Gaia called them to be her Hands.

Mythos: In the wrong hands, a myth could kill.

Apocalypse: The battle for Earth, no weapons allowed.

Reclaiming the Balance: In a post-racial world, half-humans are the new blacks.

Hearts are Mountains: After the Collapse, a woman travels toward discovery and danger.

Prodigies: To be Talented is to be an exploited commodity.

Notes: Hearts are Mountains is the book I’m starting during NaNo; Prodigies is the book I put aside while I work on the NaNo book.

Let me know what you think!!!