tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68598157160359054602024-03-14T02:31:47.095-07:00Wyatt at Pan HistoriaWords and more words. Words on writing and writing on words, role play, fiction, poetry, flash fiction, art, artists, writers, and whatever else I feel like.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-61101194985712587642011-11-05T11:43:00.000-07:002011-11-05T11:43:56.237-07:00I'm Just a Rambling ManThe writing has been kind of slow for the last week. There has been a
50% improvement in the chaotic conditions of my family obligations, but
finding that still eye of the storm is still proving to be difficult.
As soon as I feel like I'm close to it I get caught in an updraft and
find myself hurtling away at impossible speeds from what I would really
like to be doing.<br />
<br />
That said - I have mastered some plot threads
that needed tying together. My iPhone, unlike the previous clunky yet
small Blackberry, is proving a bit of a helpmate. I was able to
download a pages app for it that allows me to edit the most recent
chapter on the go. I don't foresee any solid writing time on it unless I
get the keyboard that I mentioned in the last post, and I am waiting
for my finances to improve for that, but I can edit, add ideas, and not
lose rolling trains of steamy thought.<br />
<br />
One of my plotting
solutions involves a famous historical character, Harry Houdini, who has
now gained importance in the novel, and thusly I am forced (oh what
terrible pain and joy!) to read the recent <a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Houdini-ebook/dp/B000MGAU66/panhistoria-20" href="http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Houdini-ebook/dp/B000MGAU66/panhistoria-20" target="_blank" title="The Secret Life of Houdini">bio</a>
of him that I got. Sadly it is not available on the Kindle... wait, it
wasn't but maybe it is now... let me toddle off and check...<br />
<br />
Back.
Ah, wonderful. I feel like a walking, talking, typing advert for the
iPhone, but I am a convert. So I have downloaded the Kindle app to my
phone, and my copy of the Houdini book is now there, on the page I was
last reading, and I'm ready to snatch minutes from my workday to learn
all I need to know about the amazing magician, contortionist, and escape
artist. Amusing note on the side: on my wall, by my desk, is my
Houdini Action Figure. It was a gift from one of my relatives - the
same year I gave them one. We exchanged.<br />
<br />
Ok, well I was away from
this for about an hour because my cat pissed on the laundry again.
It's such a joy to be able to add the mental and emotional and maybe
physical aberrations of an animal you swore to look after and love for
all his days to your list of distractions from writing. Mostly he's
been urinating on the wife's things, seems he's pissed off at me now
too. I am also hearing about the chores and programming/design tweaks I
need to make at <a data-mce-href="http://www.panhistoria.com" href="http://www.panhistoria.com/" target="_blank" title="Write in Create in a Virtual Universe of Possibilities">Pan Historia</a>...
it never ends. And just when I have the list all organized, and all
the things I have to do on it, I'll head to work for nine hours, because
that's how I pay the bills.<br />
Tune in next week to find out more
about how my iPhone helps me to conquer the madness of modern life, and
enables me to write a novel in the middle of it. Or not. You choose
how you distract yourself from your own writing.<br />
<br />
Perhaps you might join a <a data-mce-href="http://occupywallst.org/" href="http://occupywallst.org/" target="_blank">revolution</a>?Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-36347224305099206372011-10-27T10:29:00.000-07:002011-10-27T10:30:07.755-07:00Have Keyboard, Will Travel<p>I'm glad to say that after my last <a title="Spinning Out of Control" href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/spinning-out-of-control/" href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/spinning-out-of-control/">update</a> I made some time in my life for writing my novel again. This is quite an achievement because the distractions and tornado keeps on building around me. The whole world seems to want to go up in flames, and perhaps it should, and I've got wandering random family members in transition in this funnel of frantic windy energy needing a couch to sleep on. Thusly I have no private space where the mind can be fertile and still enough that it suddenly freely sprouts words, one upon the last, building and building, until there is a tower of words, wobbly, but upright. </p><p> As a matter of fact I am writing this now instead of working on my book in the precious morning I have before work because I can manage this kind of personal writing with the distractions, but not the real hard work of writing a novel. I've set myself a quota of words each day: a measly 500. This can count towards that goal, as well as the collaborative posts I do at <a target="_blank" title="Pan Historia - a writing community" href="http://www.panhistoria.com" href="http://www.panhistoria.com/">Pan Historia</a>, but it doesn't feel as satisfying anymore, not as compelling as getting into the heads of my characters. I miss my book when I'm not at it.</p><p> I just took a break from writing this to browse computer tablets. I started to wonder, since I have lacked a private space of my own, a space with a door that shuts the world out, if I were to go fully mobile could I pick up stray pockets of time and privacy from my maelstrom days to dash out those few measly words, make those notes, build that tower...</p><p> Nope, they lack the essential tool that I crave: a keyboard. I could go retro and try the notebooks, and I have done that before, but unlike those folks that love freehand and the pen or pencil, I'm a sucker for the keyboard. I can type about 50pm if I factor in the mistakes, or maybe faster by now, and I need the speed because that's often how fast the words flow. When I write by hand I miss words, phrases, even passages, skipping over them as the next word crashes into me. I paint the same way. I can't do it slow. Which of course begs the question: why isn't my output greater? The answer is frustrating: I fritter away much of my free time (little and precious though it is) in frivolities. I resolve, every day and every minute, to do better, but when you're a speed freak, like the hare, you need a lot of breaks. </p><p> I have seventy more words to find... then I'll have fulfilled my quota for the day. </p><p> Oh my god... had another idea, took another break - could this be the solution:</p><p><a target="_blank" title="Freedom Pro Bluetooth Portable Folding Keyboard" href="http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Bluetooth-Blackberry-BlackBerry-Smartphones/dp/B002ZNIWJ6/panhistoria-20" href="http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Bluetooth-Blackberry-BlackBerry-Smartphones/dp/B002ZNIWJ6/panhistoria-20"> Freedom Pro Bluetooth Portable Folding Keyboard</a><br /></p><p> It's a bit pricy, but so far the reviews are good. I can whip this sucker out of my backpack, hook it up to my phone and be on my way. Hmmm... this could work. Have keyboard, can travel. It seems I'm on the eternal quest to be completely hooked up until my excuses have no where to run and hide anymore, and either I write, or I admit that I'm not a writer.</p><p> </p><p>Haha. 556 words.</p>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-44381281729289584522011-05-27T11:13:00.001-07:002011-05-27T11:13:54.201-07:00I Have Never Shot a Gun...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">"Write what you know."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Boy, that's getting to be the old chestnut of writing advice.<span style=""> </span>It's also hugely misleading.<span style=""> </span>The kernel of truth in it is that whatever you writing should have authenticity.<span style=""> </span>Don't let people catch you out in ignorance.<span style=""> </span>It trips up the reader when they totally figure out that the author has no idea what they are talking about.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This advice is not about, however, only writing from personal experience.<span style=""> </span>If we all did that the fictional landscape would be one helluva a boring place.<span style=""> </span>The whole point of fiction is to take you someplace you <b>don't</b> know.<span style=""> </span>At least it is for me and probably the majority of readers.<span style=""> </span>Very few people pick up a book to escape into a reality so like theirs it is indistinguishable.<span style=""> </span>What they want to do is be able to relate to the characters in the book, but not meet any old regular joe.<span style=""> </span>They want to go to the far reaches of the galaxy, or to ride the Pacific Union Railroad with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid waiting for them around the bend to blow up the safe.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even if you're reading something that is contemporary you want to peek into the mind and heart, or maybe the madness, of someone you don't know.<span style=""> </span>You might be able to relate, but you aren't them, and they aren't exactly anyone you know either.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The real key to writing what you know is to research and make sure you get the details right, even if it is pure and utter fantasy, and then inject your personal experience into the story to render it authentic.<span style=""> </span>You might not have been born in the 1900s but you can relate to something so tight fitting it makes it hard to breathe, you understand what riding a train is like, and you know the fear that the threat of violence brings.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Every character should be a little bit of an autobiography because you're reaching inside yourself to imagine something completely, but that doesn't mean you know what's like to be a serial killer, or vampire, or a space cowboy 400 light years from home.<span style=""> </span>Every character is also a little bit of biography because you're grabbing stuff from people you know.<span style=""> </span>Even the most ordinary friend has a bit of the extraordinary you can pilfer to bring your characters to life.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Always authenticity is key, so really the old chestnut should read: "write from the heart, and then even what you don't know will come to life for your readers".</p>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-25922842435135220812011-03-21T12:19:00.000-07:002011-03-21T12:21:25.179-07:00Procrastination Bites!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGE_BlnMq7cjG8Gy5fX_4AeKypPXTH32u2HfOCJ_TUaUMSQrkPNUZiDuWWi9jmwohgqNT6x-7c3mXVSytbP0hfExZwIAkoaIM4OdRwachQQwogHAXZwg9QzFfxgdWazbjZrGwj4mkGUlTp/s1600/261.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 193px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGE_BlnMq7cjG8Gy5fX_4AeKypPXTH32u2HfOCJ_TUaUMSQrkPNUZiDuWWi9jmwohgqNT6x-7c3mXVSytbP0hfExZwIAkoaIM4OdRwachQQwogHAXZwg9QzFfxgdWazbjZrGwj4mkGUlTp/s320/261.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5586615357856536978" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">You know the score.<span style=""> </span>You're supposed to be writing.<span style=""> </span>Instead you find your eyelids drooping and a powerful urge to sleep coming on.<span style=""> </span>Or you start clicking those stupid little games in FaceBook or you open your version of Spider Solitaire.<span style=""> </span>Just a few games... honest.<span style=""> </span>Then you'll get back to writing.<span style=""> </span>Or maybe you're the type that will start cleaning the house or doing the laundry... oh shit, hold on, I just have to put the wash in the dryer now, be right back...</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ok, now where was I?<span style=""> </span>Oh yes, procrastination - the bugbear of the would-be writer.<span style=""> </span>Or maybe even the nemesis of all writers?<span style=""> </span>Possibly so.<span style=""> </span>Wait? Do I hear the siren call of a completely different writing project all my name?<span style=""> </span>You know, something like a blog, or maybe even a new collaborative writing project at your favorite online writing community?<span style=""> </span>Whatever it is - something is always keeping you from finishing your novel, that is, if you are at all like me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So what are your favorite distractions?<span style=""> </span>What's your laundry list of things that suddenly need doing urgently every time you sit down to write and how the heck do you conquer those distractions and interruptions?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Games?<span style=""> </span>Close the program.<span style=""> </span>Delete the software.<span style=""> </span>Social networking?<span style=""> </span>Turn off the Twitter.<span style=""> </span>Other writing projects?<span style=""> </span>Perhaps time management is required.<span style=""> </span>Too tired?<span style=""> </span>What do you<span style=""> </span>need to eliminate from your day that is a waste of your time so you'll be able to find the time, space, and energy to write?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to hear from YOU.<span style=""> </span></p>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-47846461550219754982010-12-31T10:33:00.000-08:002010-12-31T10:34:34.725-08:00Jerk that Pistol: Firing into the New Year<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">I was talking with someone the other day about New Year's resolutions.<span style=""> </span>The person I was talking to was negative in response - citing their unwillingness to succumb to peer pressure to state unattainable goals.<span style=""> </span>I made some kind of blithe return that I didn't necessarily believe in 'resolutions' as such, but I did try and set myself some goals.<span style=""> </span>Here is one right now:<span style=""> </span>I resolve not to talk out of my ass so much.<span style=""> </span>The concept of resolutions and making goals are so similar as to be totally interchangeable.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having stated I would make no resolutions (but would have goals, insert eye roll here) I immediately started making resolutions.<span style=""> </span>This got me curious.<span style=""> </span>Where does this tradition of New Year's resolutions come from?<span style=""> </span>A quick google around the internet revealed that it goes back to Roman times, and involves making promises of good deeds to the Roman god Janus.<span style=""> </span>Janus is the one with two faces, one looking back and one looking forward.<span style=""> </span>Ok, I can totally get behind a Roman tradition.<span style=""> </span>Romans kick ass (please don't tell my Egyptian characters how much I love Romans).<span style=""> </span>Of course for hundreds of years New Year's resolutions were quite attainable: I will a pile of gold to the poor, I will return the chariot I stole from my neighbor, I will marry the girl I knocked up, etc.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Somehow, over the years, the resolution came to be some personal goal of self-improvement.<span style=""> </span>Which is, apparently, the reason that fewer and fewer New Year's resolutions actually get followed through on, with most people giving up after just a couple months.<span style=""> </span>Giving a charitable donation is a very achievable goal; becoming a better person is not.<span style=""> </span>Just think of all the people determining right this minute that they will lose weight, write every day, be nicer to the people they despise, or exercise more?<span style=""> </span>Are you going to be one of them?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I resolve to write a novel this year.<span style=""> </span>I already started it.<span style=""> </span>I have the books I need for research.<span style=""> </span>I'm not going to tell you how many hours a day I plan to write, or any other writerly self-improvement resolutions that I will probably break before I get a week or two into the New Year.<span style=""> </span>I am simply going to set myself an achievable goal: I will finish my book.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There.<span style=""> </span>Done.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">What about you?</p>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-90030364092731326612010-12-05T09:15:00.001-08:002010-12-05T09:15:55.243-08:00Pan Historia Technical Status ReportHere is the latest news as best I know it: Pan is protected by a uninterrupted power supply (UPS) that can keep Pan's server running even when the power goes down because it has a battery backup. It is programmed to shut Pan down automatically when battery power goes low. It seems that this battery is getting old and needs replacing, or we need a new UPS, whichever comes first, and it is shutting Pan down even though there are no power outages.<br /><br />Unfortunately the man, Pandaman, with the technical expertise to determine exactly what is needed and how to program a UPS, is currently on a much needed vacation in the wilds of New Zealand with no internet access, so it's just me doing the best that I can. Until the problem is resolved there will be frequent interruptions of service as I shut down Pan to try and work on a solution. Right now I'm running around looking for a new powerful UPS so we can get Pan back online. I was able to confirm that Pan's status is good. There are no problems with the server itself and the backup server looks healthy too.<br /><br />Please be patient and understand that any interruptions of service are far better than Pan crashing. Automatic or manual shutdown is good, crashing is BAD.<br /><br />Please subscribe to our Yahoo Group in order to be kept informed about Pan's status updates:<br /><br /><form style="padding: 2px 4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); width: 254px;" action="http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/panpiper" method="get"><br /><h6 style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: center;">Subscribe to panpiper</h6><br /><input style="vertical-align: top;" name="user" size="20" value="enter email address" type="text"><br /><input alt="Click to join panpiper" name="Click to join panpiper" src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/yg/img/i/us/ui/join.gif" type="image"><br /><p style="text-align: center;">Powered by <a href="http://us.groups.yahoo.com/">us.groups.yahoo.com</a></p><br /><br /></form>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-74305323774817819972010-12-02T13:38:00.000-08:002010-12-02T13:40:18.878-08:00Christmas Present, Christmas Past, Christmas Virtual<a href="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/panbanner122010sma.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-323" title="panbanner122010sma" src="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/panbanner122010sma.gif" alt="" width="477" height="62" border=0></a>Do I scream or do I cry? It's that time of year again. I love the holidays and I hate the holidays. Remember being a child? It was all so uncomplicated then. Santa came in the middle of the night, ate up all the cookies you left him and sucked down on the cream sherry (yes, we were that kind of household), and then left a humungous plethora of joy wrapped in silver, red, and gold paper.<br /><br />Year after year it grew more complicated. The first Christmas away from home, spent in another family's home as an outside was like a dash of cold water that sent my youthful emotions spinning into darkness. Later on changing family dynamics changed the holidays from my uncomplicated joy to harrowing nightmares that might involve drunken binges (not mine). Expanding connections and networks produced an overload of spending, responsibility, anxiety, and stress as big business pushed ever harder for us all to succumb to an orgy of consumerism at the holidays. As a single parent there were those mornings when I knew I had failed my offspring because I couldn't afford those excessive gifts that were commonplace, it appeared, in every household but my own on Christmas morning.<br /><br />Now I have a family that demands to be together, and yet collectively sighs and moans at the difficulties inherent at fulfilling the expectations of the season. I'll be doing a little of the same, but in the middle of all the chaos and tears, there will also be hugs, and moments of genuine gladness in each other.<br /><br />Now if only the holidays could be like they are at <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/">Pan Historia</a>: full of fun and games, where gift giving may be real or virtual, but it hardly counts which because everyone is just happy to be involved. No one worries about the stresses of real life too much because it is where they come to escape such concerns. The <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/Novels/Character_Homes/home.php?CharID=3746">tree is big and gaudy</a> with plenty of love decorating it, but no needles to sweep up at the end. The food is fun, but will not make you fat or give you indigestion. And it really doesn't matter what the holidays mean to you. We have something for everyone.<br /><br />Oh, and I love our red cardinal and snow theme this year, simple and elegant.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-54375387517698498412010-11-28T09:45:00.000-08:002010-11-28T09:47:35.191-08:00To Publish or Not to Publish - That is the Rub<p><a href="http://knighttimecreations.com/" target="_blank"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-317" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="copyright_jackknight" src="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/copyright_jackknight.jpg" alt="back cover art for Panthology artwork by Jack Knight" align="left" width="286" height="410" /></a>Having spent quite a few months working on the <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/panthology/13837553" target="_blank">Panthology</a> it's time to ask myself: what's next? I'm happy to get back to reading and writing in my collaborative novels at <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/" target="_blank">Pan Historia</a>, but ultimately I thrive on goals and projects that can yield tangible achievements. Writing on Pan is the most pleasurable form of exercise I know, but I still consider it exercise. It's social, it's fun, it's interactive, but the end of the day it's building things that last that I enjoy the most. Tinkering with the structure of Pan is something that gives me great satisfaction and joy as I strive to increase membership and participation by increasing the ease and functionality of the site. Of course I'm only a tinkerer when it comes to site construction but I believe that Pan reflects its users to a large degree. It's not so much about bells and whistles and high tech apps, but about being a comfortable place to express one's imagination. Writers just need to write, ultimately.<br /><br />Perhaps that explains my mild obsession with publishing Pan Press books? I mean the logical conclusion of a writer's work is to be published. It's as old as the hills—or as old illuminated manuscripts anyway. To be published is to be real, genuine, accepted, legitimate. Technically it's considered a form of publishing to post material, such as this blog, on the internet for others to read, but both you and I know it's not what WE mean, as authors, when we say we are "published." Even when we boast, as I have done, of my status as a "published" author deep down in my heart I want that book with pages of vellum, binding, rabbit skin glue, and black ink. This is probably why authors, as a group, are the most resistant to the idea of eBooks. It's not quite... printed... is it? Of course it is, and I would be thrilled to be selling millions of copies of my novel in eBook format, but that will never cure my schoolboy crush on the first object of my desire: the book; either paperback or hardback.<br /><br />So what is next? Besides going back to work on my own novel, a supernatural/horror adventure, I think I will prepare one of my collaborative novels, FLESH, from Pan for publication. Like the Panthology it will be a collection of writers, but this time we will bring the whole stories. It will be a challenge to edit the pieces together in order to tell each story (it will be a collection of about 4-5 stories set in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has turned people into zombie-like killing machines). Zombies are hot items, and some of the stories are really very good with some great writers from the site. This is a piece that I feel has merit beyond the site, and can engage a larger audience of readers from hardcore zombie fans to general horror lovers. I would love to see if I can expand beyond members of the community and engage the interest of other readers for our publications. If it's even mildly successful it opens the door for any number of such projects for any number of genres represented at Pan.<br /><br /><a href="http://knighttimecreations.com/">Illustration by Jack Knight</a></p>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-86160042408041444232010-11-26T15:30:00.000-08:002010-11-26T15:36:06.266-08:00Panthology<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6Tm5eJQwPcNFuBmO4qeGxo2bYZwfH9blsmew4EDv6CYE2tLWj14Ouy0reKbjZwIx5R88G1AEnZOz02_uCTie4jC0SWW1qr2teB7haA0iYlPtK-5lOzd6KNqGrGbsM3owiL9ukNyV8h3s/s1600/panthologycover_small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 216px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6Tm5eJQwPcNFuBmO4qeGxo2bYZwfH9blsmew4EDv6CYE2tLWj14Ouy0reKbjZwIx5R88G1AEnZOz02_uCTie4jC0SWW1qr2teB7haA0iYlPtK-5lOzd6KNqGrGbsM3owiL9ukNyV8h3s/s320/panthologycover_small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5544006002899926722" border="0" /></a><br />I've been gone from the blogosphere a long time. Life got a wee bit hectic (marriages, moves, family, and much much more!). But here is the most interesting (for my bloggie buddies) reason for my absence:<br /><br />I have been compiling, editing, and designing <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/panthology/13837553">Panthology: A Celebration of Ten Years of Pan Historia</a>. I'm really proud of this second volume of Pan's creativity. We published <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Pan Historia Birthday Book</span> in 2004, and the second anthology has been long overdue, but how wonderful to be celebrating ten full creative years online as a collaborative writing community. <br /><br />Here is my preface to the piece (and I hope it whets your appetite):<br /><br /><br />Trying to explain to bemused friends what I spend so much time doing online is a challenge mostly likely ending in mystification whether they are writers or users of social networks.<br /><br />Media is increasingly filled with alarm calls that the internet is destroying our minds, our children, and our ability to interact with one another. Few people dare to challenge that notion. People apologize for spending time on their computers. Studies (skewed to the bias of the researchers no doubt) show that we are all increasingly unhappy, particularly when seated at our computers.<br /><br />I cannot address these concerns except to counter with my personal experience, and then present the evidence to you with this anthology of one community's creative soul. There is at least one place on the internet where the mind is stimulated, the soul is fed, the imagination set free, and people find genuine warmth and community: Pan Historia.<br /><br />The stories and excerpts that follow are eloquent testimony to that assertion. Every day for ten years I have logged into Pan eager to see what the day will bring: forays into outer space aboard a derelict spaceship; a gunfight in a dusty silver boom town; romance in medieval times; blood feuds between faery races; fan fiction; good conversation; a new recipe for the best chocolate cake; battles with slugs and snails in the garden. The possibilities are endless, and in ten years, always changing. <br /><br />It is not just the writing, but the companions that you take with you along the way. Read the story "Farewell My Heart" on page 499 by KhemumRa Hatshepsut to fully discover how imagination, fiction, and reality intersect. This heartfelt piece was the end of a long<br />collaboration between good friends, both at Pan and in real life, due to the death of one of the writers, Meritites. "Farewell My Heart" is a tribute, an ending - a perfect example of how deeply a community like Pan can touch people's lives. <br /><br />In Clio's blog entries: "Musings" on page 497, the writer chronicles for her friends at Pan, one of the most grueling and painful experiences of her life - because she trusts us.<br /><br />Behind most of these stories is another, true life, story. Marriages have been made, friendships have grown, children have been named in honor of Pan friendships and associations, and people have found solace for their real life afflictions and troubles. Young writers have literally grown up on Pan, maturing into seasoned adults. I could write a whole book about the incredible interactions I have experienced with my friends in this community. I have been moved to tears on more than one occasion when someone has confided in me how much the site has meant to them, and how it has helped ease them through a difficult period in their life.<br /><br />There is so much to Pan Historia that one anthology cannot possibly encompass it all. When the Publishers were faced with the daunting task of choosing pieces for this collection it was simply impossible to include all the great stories, writers, and friends, that have graced our virtual world in the last ten years. We simply had to do the best we could. Hopefully we captured enough to give a window into our soul. At Pan Historia we don't just write the stories, we live them.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-44159595204461788712010-03-10T09:31:00.000-08:002010-03-10T09:32:17.968-08:00The Slow Progress Report<a href="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/tortoiseandhare.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-295" style="margin: 0px 10px;" title="tortoiseandhare" src="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/tortoiseandhare.jpg?w=208" alt="The Tortoise and the Hare" width="208" height="300" /></a><a href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/slow-down-slow-before-you-end-up-like-a-bug-on-a-windshield/">I resolved to slow down on January 31st</a>. We're well into March and I'm still no master of the art of taking it slow and easy. The tortoise would still run the race and I'm still a bit like that hare: rush, rush, rush, crash. The road to the finish line is paved with good intentions, but we don't always come in first. That said I can definitely state that it's not a waste of time to slow down. I think today I'll try not to gulp my lunch so that I send burning cheese down my shirt front and burn the roof of my mouth. Easier said than done considering my lunch, today, will fall on a ten minute break. Not burning my mouth or incurring another dry cleaning bill to get the oil stains out of my shirt are both positive results - if I can swing them - of slowing down.<br /><br />In what ways do you believe you could see some results if you slowed your own life down? If you took the time to prepare your own food from good ingredients you might not only see a result in increased health but perhaps increased pleasure and satisfaction? Maybe taking meals with your family instead of eating in front of the computer or TV might increase the value of your loved ones in your life. Don't let time run away from you. You might have a paper to write, an exam to study for, or just trying to fit all the stuff you want to do between the times you have to punch the time clock, but think how much more energized you'll approach those tasks if you had some good relaxation or pleasure between?<br /><br />I got a good night's sleep, but I didn't sleep in. I got up early. I drank coffee. I didn't rush into my tasks. I allowed my brain to catch up with me, and then <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com">I wrote this morning</a>. Man, that felt good. It wasn't a marathon writing session, but it was a productive one. Then I made a nice breakfast that a hobbit would be proud of (it involved mushrooms). It so energized me that... oh look, I'm writing a blog post even and it's not even 9:30 a.m. I still have time to take a nice hot shower and dress for the job. Of course it helps that I start late today. Tomorrow it's just going to be: up, coffee, fire up the brain, breakfast, shower, dress, drive - but I'll take my time and be ready to start on the job with all synapses firing. Taking it slow doesn't necessarily mean not doing stuff. We all still have to do our things. Life is not something that will wait for you, or rather not too long. But taking your time, getting in your relaxation, and focusing more should lead to greater productivity and creativity rather than less.<br /><br />Avoid that heart attack. Take your time.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-2876013906963441152010-03-08T13:28:00.000-08:002010-03-08T13:31:11.446-08:00Taking Responsibililty for the People in Your Life<a href="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/relationship.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-303" style="border: 5px solid black; margin: 0px 10px;" title="relationship" src="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/relationship.jpg" alt="Scolding" width="200" height="256" /></a>The definition of insanity, or stupidity (I can't recall which) is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I, at times, suffer from this. I am self-aware enough to realize it so maybe I'm not insane or stupid but simply a perpetual Pollyanna? Recent events in my life and around me have caused me to reflect, again, on how people in your life can effect you, from the most casual of online acquaintances to the most keenly bonded relationships.<br /><br />I like to think of myself as a pragmatic optimist and so eventually I always have to back away from my optimism in a negative situation and assess. It's important in life to realize that we cannot change other people; we can only change ourselves. If something keeps happening to you over and over again you can either whine, bemoan everyone else's stupidity, or you can ask yourself: "why do I attract this to myself?" Once it becomes your responsibility and something <strong>you</strong> did or created or attracted it suddenly becomes a problem that is solvable rather than a perpetual source of anxiety. In the instance of someone in your life that continually reflects back negativity you have to ask yourself what about you draws that? Are you being negative? Are you too defensive? Perhaps you open yourself up to perpetual criticism because you feel inadequate in yourself?<br /><br />This swings me to my other character defect: wanting to fix everything. Much as I can take responsibility for the things that happen in my life, and then do something about creating better results and situations, is equally important to understand that some things, like the weather and tides, cannot be changed. If you find, after careful self-examination, that you have taken all the steps you can to ensure the most positive results it's time to step back. I don't mean you should resume the blame game however. I can't foresee every possible problem and ensure that it doesn't come up and disturb the glass-like surface of the sea on a calm day I would like to create in the world around me. Waves happen. There are Tsunamis. When such events occur in your life it's time to get out the surfboard and ride it out.<br /><br />But you don't have to ride out bad behavior when it comes to people. The people in our lives are there by our choice. People, as much as events, influence us. We can't always choose our family ties, but we can pick our friends. If you have a friend or acquaintance that always seems to be drawing bad feelings to you through their criticisms or dramas it's time to assess their true value to you in your life. Some people just do not add value. Don't allow people around you who continually make you feel bad. Healthy criticism is one thing. Harping discontent is quite another. Family is one area where I often endure more than I would from people not related, but even within the family boundaries <strong>must</strong> be drawn. Even there you have to state your position and require good behavior, or possibly, in the end, withdraw. Even with your family you do have a choice, even if at times that choice is a painful one to make.<br /><br />Again it's not about blaming. It's about taking responsibility. If there is a person in your life that brings you bad feelings or continually causes disruptions it's not about blaming them. It's about asking yourself why you allow them to behave in negative ways towards you? If you have clearly stated your boundaries and they still ignore your needs, then why are they in your life at all? Some people may require interventions, others just a good talking to, and some you might just need to brush off like mosquitoes, but it's all still about the choices <strong>you</strong> make in <strong>your</strong> life. As long as you know you have done what you can to right the balance and take responsibility for your actions, you can feel free to remove those negative influences, maybe once and for all.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-5482502338582960802010-02-03T09:13:00.000-08:002010-02-03T09:16:09.040-08:00Start Some Slow Connections<a href="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/blog_image.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-298" style="margin: 0px 10px;" title="blog_image" src="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/blog_image.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>Four days into my resolution to go slower in my life, take a little more time over my actions, and chew experience like it was a meal by Bobby Flay, I'm seeing only the most intangible of results, and yet... I do feel better. I seem to be just a bit more relaxed, and just a little less stressed. As a result that is highly desirable, but, of course, like with anything I want more. I'm not beating myself over the head for my lack of writing, instead focusing on the positives that I have achieved by taking tasks one bite at a time.<br /><br />The biggest obstacle is going slower at work. Around me my coworkers are rush rush rushing while their clients rush even faster; everyone falling all over themselves to get more done, seem more efficient, get onto the next task. With the bathwater of apparent inefficiency goes the baby of connection. Exchanges are superficial. Even evaluations tend to quick catch phrases that are modern shorthand to get to the emotional heart of something without actually doing the foundation work that should proceed it. Things get broken; other things get neglected. Sometimes what gets neglected is anything meaningful at all. We're not on this planet to provide services or sell things. We're here to live each our single life and hopefully in the course of that life achieve an experience of richness through our personal achievements and meaningful relationships.<br /><br />You can't have a meaningful relationship with a person in a quick and hurried uber-efficient conversation or in a five second tweet. I'm not suggesting that every client, every customer, every time you pump gas, that you stop and make friends, but certainly with those people that you touch throughout your day, day after day whether it be family, coworkers, village, or just your tribe, that you take it slow, savor it a little, and by doing so making some connections that can enrich your life and your work.<br /><br />And don't worry about the time wasted. Once you truly take everything slower with more focus there will be less time wasted, less mistakes and mishaps, and less time spent cleaning up the split milk. By slow I mean deliberate.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-65010813019349984772010-01-30T10:23:00.001-08:002010-01-30T10:23:45.548-08:00Slow Down Slow Before You End Up Like a Bug on a Windshield<a href="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/tortoiseandhare.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-295" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="tortoiseandhare" src="http://panhistoria.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/tortoiseandhare.jpg?w=208" alt="The Tortoise and the Hare" width="208" height="300" /></a>If I had sat down to write this piece yesterday morning it would have been very different. As it was, since I was forced to wait by virtue of being at work, I had time to ruminate for many an hour on this simple thought: people need to slow the heck down. Everyone is running too fast. Certainly they are in my neck of the woods. By the way how do woods get necks anyway? After ruminating, chewing the cud as it were, I was handed a magazine called <a href="http://www.good.is/">Good</a>. I haven't seen this magazine before but I bought this issue immediately because the cover proclaimed: <em>Slow Down; perspectives on a smarter, better, and slower future</em>. Leafing through the articles on driving slower, <a href="http://www.slowfood.com/">Slow Food</a>, and building things to last reflects many of the thoughts that had been tumbling like stones in my brain, slowly being polished in anticipation of this essay.<br /><br />Was it serendipity or fate that I was thinking 'Slow Down' just before someone handed me a magazine of the same thought? I think it was synergistic. It's time we all start slowing right down before we grind to a messy halt altogether. Drive too fast and you risk crashing. Oh yeah, you think you have to get somewhere in a hurry? You need to save a few minutes of your precious on the go multitasking lifestyle? You save no time when you end up in the emergency room, or on the mortician's steely slab. Worse yet you save no time when you put someone else there. Are you saving time when you rush through all of life's experiences to get to the next one? We're choking on our fast food lunches. We're giving ourselves ulcers and cancer and diabetes. We're speeding by so fast, all so we can get to the grave just that bit faster. And fast people are cranky people. Trust me. I have to deal with them every day at work and on the road.<br /><br />Life expectancy might be higher than ever, but I have a feeling that the humble farmer of a century or two ago, plowing the soil, moving through the seasons at a sedate rhythm, even if he lived less years than you will, had a longer life for he was there for almost every minute of it, rather than rushing through them so that they die like bugs on your windshield.<br /><br />I've looked at some of the other sites and articles about slowing down, and most of them seem to focus on relaxing more and doing less. I'm not necessarily going to say you should stop reading your email, or spend more time in bed, but I am going to say that I am determined to do everything with a little more deliberation, a lot less rush, and always allow time for stopping, smelling the roses, and just plain breathing while I absorb the experiences I'm having, instead of always projecting my thoughts into the future, ignoring the now. I'm going to cook my food, eat less of it on the run, spend time in the garden, write without distractions, drive at the speed limit, not honk or cut people off, or drive so fast through the pouring rain I take out someone's beloved pet. I promise to appreciate the moments of my life. No matter how I do the math I'm at least halfway through my life and many days, weeks, months, and maybe years of it I have spent in a speedy blur where I can't remember what I did or why I did it. I promise not to waste what's left. I'm going to slow down slow.<br /><br />Join me in slowing down on my new Facebook page: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slow-Down-Slow/277813893057?created">Slow Down Slow</a> - let's see if we can start spreading the word and making a difference to the quality of life. I'll also be including other articles on slowing down, multitasking less, and related topics here on my blog in the future.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-6637776487689580142010-01-24T13:34:00.000-08:002010-01-24T13:35:34.822-08:00Bombs Bursting in AirI suffer from multi-taskitis and project-overload. No matter how I try to trim down on activities and interests and procrastination it seems I keep on piling them on my head until I'm in danger of drowning. When that happens I find myself stuck on mindless distractions (anyone that is a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/panhistoria">FaceBook</a> friend of mine will know exactly what I mean) to turn off the anxiety or napping, but of course both of these end up giving me twice as much anxiety in the long run because I become more self-critical of myself for wasting valuable time. I feel like I'm on that proverbial treadmill at the gym, going nowhere fast. <br /><br />Another symptom of my over-involvement and the impossibility of focusing on one task at a time is the increasing tendency towards losing the thread, brain stutters, and memory lapses. When I sit down to work I make repeated resolutions that this day I will start to focus my energies, cut out my time-wasting activities, and structure my day. I never follow through. The miracle remains: I still get shit done.<br /><br />I'm like a poor mule beaten about the back to keep on pulling in the traces, but the whip hand? That's my own. I beat myself black and blue every day just to get through the day and get something accomplished of the long list of projects I have set myself due to the incredible firing of my brain. Basically I get ideas. It never stops. Day in day out, night time too, I'm getting ideas. I find almost everything interesting. Inspiration sparks me where ever I go, from the slow times when I actually walk somewhere and have time to smell the gardenias, to the crazy overload times where my fingers are racing across a keyboard to get the ideas down somewhere before they vanish in the ether.<br /><br />Of course the key to all of this is two-fold: make a plan and stick to it; and pick less projects. Maybe even schedule projects to be consecutive instead of all at once? How to reject great ideas though? It seems such a shame to consign interesting little tidbits to a murky "might never get around to this one" file. <br /><br />Hey, I know. I could gain 32 hours a week if I quit my job.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-16140991109125096732010-01-07T10:54:00.000-08:002010-01-07T10:55:35.970-08:00Who Cares What Color Their Eyes Are?Really - who the hell cares what color their eyes are? Heck, most of us don't even remember the color of our own spouse's eyes. I think they are sort of a grey green and mostly I remember that because she told me and it's important when picking out colors for her to wear. When I meet a person I don't say "gee, it was nice to meet Bob, he had brown eyes." I don't remember people by their eye color or their hair color or their height; unless it's unusual for some reason. So why is it so many writers write lines like this:<br /><br /><i>Darkly handsome Antonio, with bronzed biceps and chiseled jaw, gazed deeply into Allura's violet eyes, so big and moist, fringed with thick luxuriant black lashes.</i><br /><br />Yawn.<br /><br />I'm pretty much done with a book right there, aren't you? This kind of description tells us nothing except that the characters are artificially good-looking and probably going to be one dimensional. I bet he's sardonic and prone to misunderstanding the heroine until he takes her roughly, and she's rebellious and spunky, but she'll yield in the end. <br /><br />Writing the introduction for a character that starts with a physical description is, generally, a pretty good signal that whatever follows will be clichéd and hackneyed. Yet I have seen decent young writers make this mistake and follow it with a ripping yarn. They're going to be fortunate indeed if they can get away with this and expect someone to keep reading. I don't know about you but nothing about the color of the heroines eyes tell me much about her personality, and eyes simply are not windows on the soul. You can't see anything in their depths. All the nuances of expression we human beings observe in each other is caused by hundreds of muscles in the face causing the skin around eyes and brows to crinkle and furrow, the turn of a mouth. Body language is a whole body affair and so the tilt of a shoulder, the jut of a hip, or a slouched back is telling us more than a study of an iris. <br /><br />Here is a great quick sketch of a person:<br /><br /><em>He is not a guy who cares a lot about how he looks, unless he cares a lot about appearing not to care. He has angular eyebrows, and tousled hair. His disposition was serene, but you could sense a prickly, Jesuitical undercurrent coursing beneath it. He speaks softly with a gentle Texas twang.</em><br /><br />No hair color there, no eye color either, but you get a real sense of a living breathing person with personality. I took this quote from a description of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey by Nick Paumgarten in the January 4, 2010, issue of <em>The New Yorker</em>. The writer has picked out some salient features because they stand out and they tell us more about John Mackey than a mere physical description. After reading the article I know a lot about Mackey but not a thing about the color of his eyes. Tousled hair: he's not fastidious about his appearance. Angular eyebrows: gives him an intense look that accents what the author said about the prickly undercurrent underneath the serene casual appearance. Speaks softly? As Whole Foods CEO he's knows people are listening. He doesn't have to shout. <br /><br />Here is how F. Scott FitzGerald describes his tragic hero Jay Gatsby for the first time:<br /><br /><em>He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on <b>you</b> with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished - and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression he that he was picking his words with care.</em><br /><br />No idea what color his eyes are - well probably he's blond and blue-eyed and that's because he was portrayed by Robert Redford in the movie, old sport. This description, that concentrates so much on the smile and how it affected our narrator, while seeming spare in physical details actually tells us a great deal about Gatsby. He's self-made, very self-conscious, and yet he has a gift of making someone feel very special. Gatsby himself is very concerned with the external: his appearance, his speech, his house, but at the core there seems to be something empty. This image of Gatsby is then amplified and then drawn to its tragic ending throughout the rest of the book. Even more cunningly FitzGerald doesn't even introduce Gatsby until he's fueled our interest in through several chapters of mystery and gossip about the elusive Gatsby. <br /><br />The fact that the movie version tends to stick in the mind of anyone that has seen and read the book is another good example of what it really shouldn't matter what color your heroine's eyes are. Casting Robert Redford as Gatsby was an admirable choice because his boyish good looks, so blond, really mirror FitzGerald's characterization of his protagonist. Movies are a visual medium that need to make the choice about exactly what a person looks like whereas books do not. But once that choice has been made it becomes fixed in the mind. I cannot read <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Great-Gatsby-F-Scott-Fitzgerald/dp/0743273567/panhistoria-20">The Great Gatsby</a></em> without seeing Robert Redford but if I had read the book prior to the movie I might see a dark Gatsby, a small Gatsby, a burly Gatsby. My own mind would add details to the important clues that FitzGerald has drawn me and this internalized version of Gatsby would hold far more meaning to me than one created for me of whole cloth.<br /><br />If you do end up picking an eye color or hair color for your heroine or hero it should mainly be a detail for your own imagination, and unless there is a pressing reason otherwise, probably isn't important for your reader. How many times have you heard a person exclaim over the movie version of one of their favorite reads that the director got it all wrong? It clashes with their own internalized version of the story. What the author does is paint enough of a picture to grab their reader's imagination and desire to know about the character, and then the reader fills in the rest, creating a truly original symbiotic relationship between writer and reader. You need to know more about your characters than you write down, and what you end up giving the reader should be revealing of their inner nature, what makes them unique, not what color their eyes are. Better you should tell us just how they organize their sock drawer.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-4162426409919725042010-01-05T11:13:00.000-08:002010-01-05T11:14:21.851-08:00Letting the Genie Out of the BottleI just watched an amazing presentation on the source of genius and creativity by <a href="http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/">Elizabeth Gilbert</a>, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Pray-Love-Everything-Indonesia/dp/0143038419/panhistoria-20">Eat Pray Love</a>, that I want to share with you all on my writing blog this morning. Not only did it answer a few questions for me as an artist but it confirmed some of my own beliefs about art and the myth of the tortured artist. Elizabeth talks not only about writing but writing as an art form and the writer as an artist but about the other arts as well so this talk is essential for all creative people.<br /><br />As a student majoring in fine arts (I have a Masters in painting) and as the offspring of artists I'm, more than most, fully aware of our stereotypes, culturally, about artists as tortured souls that pay for their genius (modern definition of the word being that genius is being really smart or creative) with terrible mental and emotional problems. The quintessential poster boy for this viewpoint is, of course, Vincent Van Gogh. The viewpoint is so all prevailing that I know artists who have considered themselves failures when they didn't die young, or bemoaned the fact they haven't had a nervous breakdown yet.<br /><br />Normally sane people, in other words, will drink, take drugs, cultivate disruptive and destructive behaviors, just to fulfill society's prophecy that the creative individual is doomed. There are, naturally enough, tons and tons of examples. As I was studying art, being a rather sane individual that really didn't want to booze myself to death or suffer from mental illness just for my muse, I had plenty of cause to think about this topic. I was also studying art history at the same time and it's pretty easy to trace the history of the idea of artist as tortured individual from its origins. Great art has been produced of it, but is it really that useful of an idea? Can we change it?<br /><br />Elizabeth wants to give us a new myth about artists and creativity and it's actually a very old myth. Watch and rejoice:<br /><br /><!--copy and paste--><object width="446" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/ElizabethGilbert_2009-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/ElizabethGilbert_2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=453&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius;year=2009;theme=words_about_words;theme=speaking_at_ted2009;theme=the_creative_spark;event=TED2009;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/ElizabethGilbert_2009-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/ElizabethGilbert_2009.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=432&vh=240&ap=0&ti=453&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius;year=2009;theme=words_about_words;theme=speaking_at_ted2009;theme=the_creative_spark;event=TED2009;"></embed></object>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-56953907422629995302010-01-04T10:51:00.000-08:002010-01-04T10:52:37.197-08:00Counting to Completion<a href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/phscriptorium.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-283" style="margin: 0px 10px;" title="phscriptorium" src="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/phscriptorium.jpg" alt="Old Pan Historia logo" width="200" height="170" /></a>As of this morning I'm 14,460 words, 28 pages, and 6 chapters into writing my first novel. I also have 1,667 words of saved cuts.<br /><br />What's with the numbers I hear you ask? It's not about cranking it out there, but about the writing, man. Alright, that's not what you're asking - that's what I'm asking myself. I have often criticized the whole <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a> phenomena as a way of pushing output over quality. I think I understand better, now, why it's a good idea to overcome writer's block by short circuiting the whole anal retentive "it must be perfect" self-editorializing funk. Still my new obsession with numbers is not about writing 50,000 words in a single month. I am editing as I go along, and I started this particular resolution back on November 8, 2009.<br /><br />I have long known that I needed something to push myself out of my own personal procrastination cycle when it came to writing my novel. I have written of my process here a couple of times in past blogs. Then in November I had the idea to start a writing group at my community web site, <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com">Pan Historia</a>, which I dubbed <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/storyprof.php?ID=252">Write Together</a>. The purpose of the group, in all honesty, was twofold. One obvious reason was I felt that maybe a writing group of my peers where I was expected to show results would be a great way to give me a kick in the pants I needed. My other goal was to show that Pan Historia was not just a site where people fooled around and wrote purely for fun (though those are perfectly good and acceptable reasons to be there!) but also was a great hot house of creativity that could be a positive way for serious writers to have fun <strong>and</strong> improve their writing while doing it.<br /><br />To prove that I needed to make myself a good example of it. It wasn't enough for me to know that there were a few published writers on the site, and a few people that had taken their writing to the next level after sharpening their tools at Pan. I needed to <strong>be</strong> one of those people I talk about. So here I am to tell you that I am 14,460 words farther along on my goal than I was on November 8, 2009, and that feels damn good. The counting is a game that helps me to keep my eye on the ball, and my feet on the trail. It's not about quantity, but the act of moving forward and having something I can measure to let me know I'm getting somewhere.<br /><br />What game do you play to keep yourself on track with your writing goals?Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-68418269206742191392009-12-28T14:24:00.000-08:002009-12-28T14:25:33.182-08:00The Bones of a Leaf<a href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/tadpole.gif"><img src="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/tadpole.gif" alt="" title="tadpole" width="100" height="100" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-280" /></a>The human mind is an amazing instrument capable of processing data from multiple inputs at speeds that make the fastest microprocessor look like a slow moving cement mixer. Not only that but many of the functions it performs are sorted and prioritized without the owner even seeing or sensing the processes involved. One of the astonishing abilities of the mind is the interpretation and creation of symbols: one thing standing for another thing. Letters form words that the brain then interprets. A picture of shape that is roundish, red, and has a sticklike appendage near the top becomes an apple. I catch sight of a piece of leaf with just the stem and a small part of the base and I see a tadpole swimming on my carpet. <br /><br />Art, whether written, pictorial, or musical, is the mind's conscious manipulation of symbols to create images, emotion, and meaning in the mind of the observer/listener. I take something that is not there, create symbols (words or images), and deliver it to you so that you have an experience. Creating words from letters, then forming sentences, all of which describe the world, exterior and interior, is really an astounding activity and yet so many of us, from children to the most humble, can do it. Of course a lot of people tend to stick to the literal, the true, the tangible. It takes another flight of fancy to make stuff up - to make beautiful meaningful lies. <br /><br />But even the entirely made up should be full of truths eternal. They may be very small, but I believe that even in the most lighthearted or humorous or fanciful piece of fiction writing there should be yet another layer of meaning underneath the obvious. I should be able to paint a picture for you of another reality and underlying my fictional reality is yet another substrate of meaning, of symbol. A really satisfying work of art lingers with you a long time after experiencing it. It's the movie that makes you keep thinking days later, or the novel that resonates years in the future so that you have to pick it up again, and lo and behold there is even more there than the first time around. It's the painting that haunts, or the musical refrain that moves you to tears and you don't know exactly why. <br /><br />If I can ever write just one novel that has the ability to resonant in the reader's mind long after they put it down I'll have succeeded as an artist. If someone reads my words like I can read the remains of a leaf as a tadpole on my carpet then I have done my job.<br /><a href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/tadpole.gif"><img src="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/tadpole.gif" alt="" title="tadpole" width="100" height="100" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-280" /></a>Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-56900471592906911542009-12-26T11:04:00.000-08:002009-12-26T11:05:24.962-08:00Writing Goals for 2010As we approach 2010 I have an opportunity to reflect on my goals. It's been a month since I wrote anything in my blog here - and what a busy month it's been. My last post here was about my new writing group hosted at my interactive fiction/collaborative writing & role-play site <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com">Pan Historia</a> called <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/storyprof.php?ID=252">Write Together</a>. I'm here to report that even in the middle of switching jobs and surviving the crazy holidays it's been a great success for me so far. I re-committed myself to a writing regime and am currently twenty pages into a new novel. Not only have I written several chapters but I have been enjoying a great deal of inspiring research for the project. The novel is fiction, but it's set in a very specific time period (mostly 1926) with lots of exciting historical characters that need to be authentic to make the story work. <br /><br />With the holidays over (I don't count New Years and intend to spend it sedately as always) I am recommitting myself to my blog as well. My New Year's resolution, if you will, is to complete my novel in 2010 but also to maintain a steady stream of collaborative fiction and blog posts. Now I just have to remember all the good ideas I have had over the past month that I have been too busy to realize. I have a far better note taking system with the audio and notebook functions on my Blackberry as well as a nice little pocket Moleskin notebook, but somehow I still have to get ideas from brain to my devices, whatever they may be. I've been pretty diligent when it comes to the new novel but less so when it comes to other ideas, including poetry ideas, I have been slacking. Developing new habits is a matter of practice however and with all the ways that I can take down my thoughts for later I have no excuses this year for not improving. <br /><br />My new job is going to help a lot. I haven't really posted much personal stuff in my blog and that remains my intention, but I can share that when you are in a negative place, worried about finances and bullied by bosses that are less qualified than yourself, it sure can handicap your ability to be creative and productive in other spheres. My new job was a step back on the hierarchal ladder since my move across country, but it is a return to the sector that I excel in and where I have opportunities for advancement. My new bosses and coworkers all seem to be people I can respect, and I look forward to relaxing into my new position. My primary ambition in life is as an artist. Whether it is with paints, pens, or pixels, I have to remember that my job is not my career and sweat the small stuff a little less. I think 2010 promises me that freedom.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-19313221498036296372009-11-22T11:19:00.000-08:002009-11-22T11:20:13.264-08:00Write Together<a href="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/252.gif"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-275" title="252" src="http://panhistoria.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/252.gif?w=276" alt="" width="276" height="300" /></a>I've been even more quiet than usual when it comes to my blog and twitter but I have an excellent excuse. I had a brainstorm of an idea - one that helps to make <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com">Pan Historia</a> an even better destination for writers as well as one that is helping motivate me to write my own novel. I started a writing group at Pan for those of us who want to move from just writing ongoing collaborative fiction to finally finishing and publishing a novel of our own. This concept does not exclude collaborative projects (I hope to include a version of my zombie novel in this mix one day) but does focus on story structure, discipline, craft, and actually sitting down regularly and making time to write.<br /><br />For those of you who know me or know me through my blog you'll be aware of my intention to write a novel and how I have been working on one based on the life of Wyatt Earp for just about forever. Mostly it's been in the endless research phase with a sort of Mobius strip of trying to work out my new 'fresh' angle on this particular subject. When I started the new writing group <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/storyprof.php?ID=252">Write Together</a> at Pan I fully intended to finally write and complete this work. Our group is really fortunate to have a published author of a sort of mentor consultant and the first thing she asked me is "why am I writing this particular story" and I could no longer answer the question. I got some good feedback from my fellow writers and had worked out some possible interesting twists on the Wyatt Earp story and how to tell it in an engaging way, but there was no real purpose for me. I ended up answering that question with "I've been researching it? I have a book case full of books on the topic?"<br /><br />Beep. Not good enough.<br /><br />So I decided to shelve the project and immediately begun work on another novel idea that had been flitting around my mind for a while. This time I jumped into a genre that I have come to love writing in: horror. I've started work on a sort of supernatural thriller set in the 1920's full of glamorous characters, many of whom are historical, and dark sinister magic. I'm very excited about the story and using all the resources of my novel writing group as well as the many great resources I have found since using twitter and blogging, I have already got a good working synopsis, a stable of interesting rich characters, and the beginning of an outline using a classic story structure. The basic storyline and characters has been something I have been working on for quite a long time on Pan as a collaborative novel, but my focus will be on my own ideas and characters and developing a plot that has not been told in the collaborative forum so it's all original.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-50866464716182003232009-11-15T15:13:00.000-08:002009-11-15T15:14:38.679-08:00Gratifying Our Inner Child"Little Wyatt, if you want your another piece of your candy from Halloween, you have to clean your room first."<br /><br />It's a common command. Children are taught to delay gratification from the bassinet and stroller and onward to school. Learning self-control and how to defer pleasure is essential to becoming an adult human being capable of making responsible decisions that enhance quality of life and ensure survival. Some of our oldest fables and folk stories demonstrate the same principle from the hard plodding tortoise that knows he cannot rest until the job is done and thus beats the hare at a race, to the three little pigs where the one that knows to do the hard work and build his house out of brick doesn't end up pork tenderloin for a hungry wolf. Of course it's hardly kosher these days to scare children with stories of pigs being eaten by wolves is it? And how does Little Red Riding Hood fare? <br /><br />In fact not only are we less likely to tell children cautionary tales of what happens to the selfish, lazy, greedy, and irresponsible, we, collectively as parents, are less likely to teach our children to be anything <b>but</b> greedy, selfish, lazy, and irresponsible anymore. Out the window went spankings and consequences, and while I'm happy to find an alternative to physical violence as a parental disciplinary option if you can show me a better happier way, I'm terribly loath to go the way I have seen this nation tumble towards. Television sets are baby sitters that teach mass consumption. Lack of public approval for discipling children has either led to screaming harpies that don't care how they are perceived in public or the greater majority of well-meaning parents that hand that children whatever it is they are crying for as soon as they are crying, just to stop the socially embarrassing moment of a child making a scene in public.<br /><br />Rewards are handed out as incentives for self-expression rather than self-discipline and we're all lauding the freedom we experience as our entire nation, as in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald, grows ever younger and more immature. Our entire financial institution is now centered around the principle of enjoy now, pay later (or at least have someone else bail you out). Don't defer. Get a credit card. Credit cards getting a bad rap? Well now you can use layaway at some of the major stores just to be sure you can get what you want now and worry about the consequences later. No matter than you're now paying much more for it than you should be because all the added interest and fees. Can anyone remember far back into the dark ages when you know, if you had no money in your account, your card wouldn't let you have any, or wow, your check would bounce? Now instead it lets you go on blithely spending and slams you with fees later - because, of course, you gotta have it now. We have all sunk deep and deeper into a quicksand of instant gratification.<br /><br />Of course it would be easy to say: don't use credit, save, only buy what you can afford - except that the whole crazy system of instant gratification has had the domino effect of creating massive inflation (yes, I know there are complex issues and myriad causes, but it <b>is</b> one of those causes). How many years would it take to save for a house, when of course when we are young and raising a family is exactly when we need one? Rising health care costs and the wonderful fraud of insurance of course accounts for huge chunk of change making it impossible to get what we need without credit. <br /><br />Every where you choose to cast your eye in regards to our culture the cult of childish instant gratification has left its indelible print of banality, self-centeredness, and immaturity: music, art, relationships, media, and our economy. Is there a way, I wonder, to reverse that trend or are we doomed like Benjamin Button to fade into black unable to remember our own name?Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-88401614963828454472009-11-08T13:43:00.001-08:002009-11-08T13:45:05.091-08:00Retrieving the Wonder of Childlike Eyes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNeiEbdYCsK2OiLegGgBpLhoVncvFsne07jUAJu2YCH9-4Y7wQ4QtPN_joUDEIeTOzpSCzWYYBsjozizvkWBFfReT4vZ06Pckk-qq8x7T1Y4g-Smas-67GLRPOaM03L1ecDC6d2K6n8Aug/s1600-h/wonder.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNeiEbdYCsK2OiLegGgBpLhoVncvFsne07jUAJu2YCH9-4Y7wQ4QtPN_joUDEIeTOzpSCzWYYBsjozizvkWBFfReT4vZ06Pckk-qq8x7T1Y4g-Smas-67GLRPOaM03L1ecDC6d2K6n8Aug/s320/wonder.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401851765409477218" /></a><br />I recently watched a couple of young boys, probably around seven or eight, explore an area of a garden center unsupervised, and I suspect they also thought themselves alone. I was amused to observe them get excited over some plant specimens (succulents of course, weird and wonderful) as well as become totally distracted and unhinged at the sight of some bug. I smiled to myself as I remembered my same joy of discovery at the amazing world around me, and the same lack of discrimination as to what was worthy of notice and what wasn't. It was not an unusual thought that came to my mind: how sad is the loss of the wonder of youth. My next thought was a congratulatory one: I'm so glad I haven't lost my wonder. Only a few minutes later I was proving this point by collecting up some unusual pine cones that looked like old-fashioned cabbage roses and some spiky and strange seed pods, all the while wondering how I could use them in some creative way. I often stop to watch the humming bird feed, or to touch an interesting plant with an unusual texture or scent. While dead heading the cyclamen the other day I snipped a seed pod in half to see what it looked like inside, curious because I had never observed their fruit before. <br /><br />Of course my musings on the wonder of youth led me to reflect that creative people always seem to retain some of that childlike amazement and curiosity at the world around us. I started to pat myself on the back, but then I had another thought: perhaps it's not some innate specialness that allows us to retain our senses when others become smoothed to the world around them, like over-used sandpaper. Observe adults with children and you'll see the smoothing away process in action often. For every parent that is encouraging their offspring in their explorations there are at least two others teaching their children fear and/or indifference. To be honest most parents belong in both categories. We tell our children what is important to pay attention to all the time with every little caution and gesture. <br /><br />"Dad, what is this pretty flower?"<br /><br />"I don't know, it's just a flower, now do up your shoelaces."<br /><br />"Mom, I like this squishy slug."<br /><br />"Ugh! Put that down, it's dirty."<br /><br />Or better yet - just ignoring all the observations, questions, and wonder - or even better yet - criticizing, mocking, or laughing at the child for their pleasure at life's wonders.<br /><br />One of my personal favorites is misinformation. The largest dissemination of crap information is from parents to their children. It can be minor as in identifying an ape as a monkey, or it can be major as in stating that all people of a certain colored skin or sexual preference are inferior. <br /><br />Of course I once failed to correct a couple of little boys as they made some wild assumptions: they were identifying some marks on the side of a ship docked in a harbor as being the result of 'shark bites'. I loved that. That was not misinformation but a sign of the wonderful imagination that all human beings are born with. Seeing some places where the paint was missing from the hull down at the water line their young minds, still not trained to ignore or classify as uninteresting or useless, imagined huge Great Whites with gaping jaws full of sharp and horrifying teeth as the fish leapt up out of the water in a feeding frenzy. <br /><br />Perhaps if you have found yourself rubbed too smooth to wonder at life any longer, too harried to pass on your own wonder to your kids? I present no answers here, but I hope to have fueled some thought that might lead you down a path of rediscovery, and maybe what you find there, on that yellow brick road, might rub off on your little ones.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-7366386859061448982009-11-03T12:03:00.000-08:002009-11-03T12:04:48.503-08:00Multidimensional Writing ExperienceThere is a lovely multidimensionality in starting up a new character for a collaborative writing/role play project at Pan Historia that feeds all my creative urges at once, nearly. There are two main roads into a new character: getting an idea for a character and then finding a place for them to dwell; or finding a story you really like and then finding a character to fit in. Creating a new character from scratch is the most creatively demanding because of the added dimensions of home page design. I love kitting out a new page for a new character from finding the right graphics, or creating them from scratch if one has a bit of tech savvy with a graphics program, and then designing a fun informative home page from all the different components.<br /><br />Home pages are useful. I think of them as character biographies where you can get your decorating urges taken care of and impart something useful about your character in turn. My <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/Novels/Character_Homes/home.php?CharID=1">Wyatt Earp</a> home is both western in theme and includes useful historical quotes about Wyatt from people that actually knew him. My <a href="http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/Novels/Character_Homes/home.php?CharID=727">Gabriel Oak</a> home is less about the personality of the character but is very informative about some of my inspiration for the character. Gabriel is an interesting character inspired both from literature and from the movies. Those familiar with Thomas Hardy will recognize the source of the character's name, and of course the face I use is from the movie version of the novel "Far From the Maddening Crowd". I'm not a fanboy however and Gabe is his own character. In one earlier incarnation he was an artist with a supernatural angelic side living inside him. When he moved on to a different story he became a drunk, the human mask, of the Archangel Gabriel. <br /><br />Of course some characters live in many different role play and collaborative stories and one home page can hardly do justice to all their diverse lives. That's why the profile pages were originally added as a 'room' off the main home page. These pages include sections for each novel that a character appears in so that the owner can give a little biographical detail. The beauty of a site like Pan, though, is that with so many interactive features the creativity of the individual takes over and tools are always adapted to the needs of their owners. I don't try and force people to use Pan the way I anticipated. Instead I'm often adapting Pan to fit in with the needs of the users. <br /><br />A lot of people reserve their character biographies for the forums of the novels themselves and use the home pages as a place to show off all their awards, prizes, badges, and the little graphical gifts that people make for one another. This is probably a similar approach that many users of MySpace employ, but it's fun nonetheless. Of course it doesn't really help me, as a writer, when I click on their home to see more about their character, but usually I can at least some kind of sense from the avatar they have chosen to represent their character. Other people actually write out character sheets. I have never employed one of those. I like to get a general impression, and then let inspiration take its course when I'm writing. If I get too locked down on who I think a character is I find that the work become stifled and creativity shuts down.<br /><br />I guess I can sum up what I'm trying to say is that using the internet and a web site like Pan Historia allows me and my fellow writers to add layers and dimensions to our writing experience, like creating images and home pages to enhance the experience. The way that any particular writer or role player chooses to implement these tools is often going to be as unique and different as the perspectives we bring to our writing and characters.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-79070327407450963902009-10-20T11:40:00.001-07:002009-10-20T11:41:22.194-07:00My Top Eleven Romantic Heroines of Literature1. Tess Durbeyfield - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/DUrbervilles-Penguin-Classics-Thomas-Hardy/dp/0141439599/panhistoria-20">Tess of the D'Urbervilles</a></em> by Thomas Hardy, 1891<br />2. Sarah Woodruff - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/French-Lieutenants-Woman-John-Fowles/dp/0316291161/panhistoria-20">The French Lieutenant's Woman</a></em> by John Fowles, 1969 (but inspired by an 1823 novel)<br />3. Catherine Earnshaw - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wuthering-Heights-Barnes-Noble-Classics/dp/1593081286/panhistoria-20">Wuthering Heights</a></em> by Emily Bronte, 1847<br />4. Elizabeth Bennett - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Penguin-Classics-Austen/dp/0141439513/panhistoria-20">Pride & Prejudice</a></em> by Jane Austen, 1813<br />5. Anne Elliot - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Persuasion-Jane-Austen/dp/1440468397/panhistoria-20">Persuasion</a></em> by Jane Austen, 1816<br />6. Scarlet O'Hara - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gone-Wind-Margaret-Mitchell/dp/1416548890/panhistoria-20">Gone with the Wind</a></em> by Margaret Mitchell, 1937<br />7. Sophie Zawistowska - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sophies-Choice-Modern-Library-William/dp/0679602895/panhistoria-20">Sophie's Choice</a></em> by William Styron, 1979<br />8. The Marquise de Merteuil - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liaisons-Classics-Pierre-Ambrois-Francois-Choderlos/dp/0140449574/panhistoria-20">Les Liasons Dangereuses</a></em> by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, 1782<br />9. Countess Ellen Olenska - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Age-Innocence-Barnes-Noble-Classics/dp/159308143X/panhistoria-20">The Age of Innocence</a></em> by Edith Wharton, 1920<br />10. Roxane - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cyrano-Bergerac-Edmond-Rostand/dp/0451528921/panhistoria-20">Cyrano de Bergerac</a></em> by Edmond Rostand, 1897<br />11. Jane Eyre - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jane-Vintage-Classics-Charlotte-Bronte/dp/030745519X/panhistoria-20">Jane Eyre</a></em> by Charlotte Bronte, 1847<br /><br />Not included on my list but available for discussion: Anna Karenina - <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0143035002/panhistoria-20">Anna Karenina</a></em> by Leo Tolstoy, 1877<br /><br />These are my top eleven (today anyway) favorite romantic but flawed heroines of literature. You might have others that don't appear on my list, but I had a couple of binding rules for including characters on my list: <br /><br />1. I had to have actually read the book, not just seen the movie or BBC adaptation.<br />2. They had to be smart and not just victims or ciphers for the male character to show off to.<br />3. I had to find them sexy.<br /><br />Curiously this set of rules nearly knocked Jane Eyre off the list. Much as I admire her spunk and passion, she never set my pulse racing, but on deep consideration she's too well written of a heroine not to include. Tess might be on the list for the opposite reason - she's hot, but I'm not sure she's not more of a victim than not. Of course considering the time periods all of these heroines had to live in it's not at all surprising that their lives are often tragic, and that fate deals them hands that no one could raise above, no matter their inner steel. <br /><br />Taking my heroines one by one I will give a brief explanation for their inclusion on my all time favorites list; however please bear in mind there is no particular order to the list. Tess is there because of her struggle. Viewed through the eyes of the men around her we see her vulnerability and desirability, and yet... she's so badly treated by them all. She keeps getting kicked down, getting back up, and getting kicked back down again. Sarah Woodruff, on the surface seems a similar sort. Her mystery makes her desirable and then Fowles plays with us by giving us all possible versions of her, and yet not revealing which is the true Sarah. Cathy Earnshaw is elemental in her passion. Who wouldn't fall for a woman that death couldn't even hold down? Elizabeth Bennett is one smart cookie, but prone to understandable blindness. Her beauty lies in her essential goodness and her ability to learn, grow, and her loyalty to those she loves. <br /><br />Anne Elliot is a more gentle heroine, trapped by social mores, she retains dignity. In the end she wins deserved love and redemption. Scarlet O'Hara is maddening. She's beautiful, passionate, and fiery. She's strong-willed, an idiot, and irritating as hell. Who hasn't fallen for such a woman? Sophie from Sophie's Choice is so beautiful and tragic, she makes my heart bleed. I suppose in the literal sense The Marquise de Merteuil is not a heroine. She is spiteful and scheming, and yet I feel that she is such a woman of passion and intelligence she deserves her place here. She is merely having her revenge for the status her gender demands. She uses her wit like poison, and in the end it is she that suffers.<br /><br />The Age of Innocence is the one book on this list I did not read until the end, but not because it wasn't worth reading. I had seen the movie first, and then intrigued picked up the novel. It was great, but for me the repressed and thwarted passion of Ellen Olenska was more than I could bear a second time. I wanted her to win against society, when no winning was possible in that time period. I think Roxane is an overlooked heroine. Everyone focuses on Cyrano, and with good reason, but Roxane is the lovely woman with the understanding to adore beautiful words, and in the end she would have loved Cyrano as well or better than Christian, if she'd been given the opportunity. Jane Eyre... everyone knows her: mousy governess with a wild heart capable of great and passionate love. It's the dark eyes, luminous in a pale face, that does it.<br /><br />Anna Karenina is not on the list because I hated that book. The story of Anna was powerful and provocative, but cut with a very boring second story about some landowner and his wheat crops. I have no idea this far removed his name or why he was there, but I didn't finish the book and it pissed me off. I did, however, read the incredibly lengthy War and Peace, so it's not big wordy Russian novels by Tolstoy that put me off.<br /><br />Which brings up another question I have about my own list. Why are all the books so old or even if written in this century set in an earlier age? Where are the modern heroines to make my blood boil and my heart strings sing? I don't know if I have the complete answer to that question. I know that I read a great many classics in my teens and twenties - exactly at the time when the hormones were raging the most - so it's entirely possible that my concept of what was romantic was crystallized by my reading habits. I also know that I don't often read modern fiction, and when I do I don't find a lot of romantic writing there. I won't pick a 'romance' because they are often, for me, of very limited scope and reading quality as genre fiction. Has a good modern romance been written? If so please tell me about them so I can expand my horizons. Also feel free to post your own list in my comment box. I want to hear more about it.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6859815716035905460.post-6618502709724514442009-10-14T13:06:00.000-07:002009-10-14T13:07:40.437-07:00Sex & Romance: Let's Write It!Romance. We all love it, even those of us that suggest otherwise. Sex. Ditto there, folks. But is there any deeper quagmire that a writer can sink in? I'm talking about experienced authors as well as first time writers. It's a morass. How do you write about sex and romance, either together or separately, without coming off like something from <em>Penthouse</em> magazine or worse just plan repetitive, dull, or clichéd? The topic is so sticky with cliché and innuendo that often people don't even recognize when something is clichéd. They're programmed to either go 'ahhhhhh' or blush, or sneer, or mock, or even giggle inanely. <br /><br />For a writer, if we are writing some pure romance, or want to create a great sex scene that warms the... heart then we certainly don't want to cause our readers to put the scene down with a humph, a yawn, or a ridiculing laugh. If that scene is part of a greater whole than we sure don't want our readers to rush through uncomfortably, knowing that they won't miss anything of great import. Sex, like any other human activity, needs a reason to be in the story. If you're writing a romantic novel where boy meets girl, or girl meets girl, the sex is part and parcel of the narrative. No need to agonize whether or not to include it. The only question that needs to be in your mind is "how spicy, how explicit". In this case that judgment call is more about your audience. Some readers like their sex soft, romantic, vanilla, and veiled in pretty words, and that's just fine for that kind of novel. This blog isn't about that kind of writing.<br /><br />Sex, just like romance, can be rude, quirky, dirty, sloppy, hurried, insane, intense, funny, and clumsy - and it happens for a reason. In our fiction writing it happens to reveal something about the character, or lead the characters where they need to go. These are all elements that once included make the reader associate more intensely with your characters and not reject the sex as gratuitous fluff. When it comes to awkward moments we've all been there and done that - and good sex is like good wine: it can combine flavors that seem madly disparate like blackberries and charcoal. The trick is knowing what is sexy and what is not out of those elements. If you're looking to turn up the heat you can be inventive and silly, but you have to know when any particular element is gross or makes your hero look like an unattractive ass. My trick is to imagine the scene completely: would I be turned on or off if a particular thing happened during sex? <br /><br />Falling off the bed during the intensity of love-making can either be funny, tragic, or sexy. It will depend on the telling. Accidentally farting will always end the heat, even if the laughter kicks in (in real life you might get over it, but I can practically guarantee your reader won't). It's like overflowing trash in your kitchen when you're cooking. It spoils the appetite. It's important to keep it real, and yet, for the heat, you have to keep it from getting too real. It's always got to be a little bit of the best sex you ever had, and not necessarily just the best sex you ever imagined. <br /><br />Truly great love affairs are never easy. They're not about candy, <em>Hallmark</em> greeting cards, soft focus, or soft love-making from incredibly virile men with a sardonic smirk and a searing kiss, who knows when the heroine (who is unbelievably lovely, spunky but submissive in bed) says "no, no" she means "yes, yes". Truly great sex is often memorable for the details. Where you were, what you were doing before hand, how you felt at the time, and that warm laugh you shared when you broke your coffee mug as you swept it off your desk in the heat of passion. It's that wonderful little bit in <em>When Harry Met Sally</em> when she fakes an orgasm in the deli, or <em>Bridget Jones's Diary</em> where Hugh Grant strips off the cute little cocktail dress only to find granny panties. Or it's that bit that makes you want to crawl out of your skin in <em>The Age of Innocence</em> where the passion of the main characters, so repressed by the societal mores of their day, is entirely expressed by Newland Archer removing the glove from Ellen Olenska's hand during a carriage ride and pressing her fingers to his lips. <br /><br />So let's talk language for a second. I'm a fan of no beating around the proverbial bush. I find words like 'member', 'tool', and other such euphemisms amusing so they spoil the moment for me. Those that don't like their sex written so explicitly will, violently on occasion, disagree with me. If you have to use euphemisms be cautious with them, and choose the words with great care so that you're not accidentally inspiring laughter instead of sympathetic passion. You might be sparing your less sensitive readers much blushing but instead causing your more bold readers to laughter or worse, to feel boredom. Telling a sexy story need very rarely ever go right to the finish either. This is not porn we're talking about. The 'money shot' is seldom really called for in any scene. An orgasm is only an orgasm in real life. In fiction it's the lead up that counts. Make me squirm and shudder. Take me to the brink and I'll fall over the edge all by myself with the aid of my own imaginative juices.Pan Historiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01784598437235690294noreply@blogger.com0