I Wrote This

My (spoilery) review of Pan's Labyrinth is up at Strange Horizons. To sum up: I liked it, a lot.

Graffiti Etiquette

Graffiti Etiquette
Originally uploaded by Snurri.

"Consider that the last broadcast television station in the city went off the air in 1985. (For information on Cathode Phantoms and 'Channel Spider' see Chapter 17.) The municipal radio station (officially called Radio Faldbakken--with the mayor's characteristic modesty--but known to most citizens as the Squeal) is limited to broadcasting hourly news updates and three hours of programming in the evenings. There are three or four primary newspapers in the city (depending on your count), none of which are published every day, all with a limited and inconsistent circulation area. Once these realities are taken into account it is not difficult to understand how graffiti has become the city's preferred media. . . . The messages vary in polish and professionalism as well as content; from stencilled messages from the city ('Water Station 8 Blocks This Direction,' 'Use of Magic Prohibited In This Area,' and the omnipresent 'Off Limits') to crude hand-painted advertisements ('Resturant [sic] 4 Blocks South,' 'Garden Vegetables Avail. Here,' 'Prognosticator/Escort Service') to elaborate tag-puzzles which, to the initiated, are a detailed guide to the street-level web of influence and power for the neighborhood in question. . . . While it is difficult to trace any particular set of messages to a single artist, many astute observers of street art believe that a single individual (known variously as 'Miss Casein' or 'Spraypaint Abby,' though it should be pointed out that the gender of the individual is not known) is responsible for a particular set of messages. They point to the consistent use of milk-based paint, the identical typeface of the stenciling, and the odd, off-kilter phrasing. 'Look Both Ways Before Tossing Sewage' is one of the most frequently sighted tags, along with 'Share Your Meat' and 'Declare Salamander Infestations.' While reminders of civic responsibility are the mystery tagger's most frequent works, other slogans are more worrisome. In particular, residents of the northeast side have been concerned by recent exhortations to 'Offer Thanks to the Rat Gods.' . . . Mayor Faldbakken's Graffiti Painters have expressed a desire for this unknown tagger (or taggers) to join the city's official squad, but to date no contact has been made." (p.131)

We'll See It Through, It's What We're Always Here to Do (Writing Wank)

Please note that this is not a "Do as I do" post. (I feel the need to disclaim as I dislike prescriptive writing advice.)

I'm a very . . . seat-of-the-pants sort of writer. Particularly in the long form. With short stories, about half the time, I think about the story for long enough ahead of time that I more or less know the whole thing before I start. I may even do a rough outline before I start scribbling. With novels I can't do this. I have a setting, and some characters with baggage, and some things that I know I want to happen. Everything else (and even a lot of the preceding) is subject to change. Partly this is because it's more fun for me not to know everything ahead of time. Partly it's because it's my experience that every word is shaped by the words that precede it. (I nearly always write in sequence, for this reason.) Scenes often reveal things to me that I don't expect. It's in the details of character and setting that the story becomes real to me--stranger, more emotionally resonant, more true.

What this means, in practical terms, is that I get stuck a lot. I finish a chapter and I'm not sure what happens in the next. I know things that are supposed to happen, because the shape of the larger plot becomes clearer to me as I go along. But sometimes simply getting a character across the room is an ordeal. In other words, the specifics matter.

There are things I do when I get stuck. First, I don't panic. Well, not at first. I figure I've got until the next day or so before I need to get started on the next bit. But not long, particularly now; I've set myself a deadline for this book, and the deadline means that I have to finish 2 1/4 chapters a week, or nine a month, and somewhere in the midst of that are going to be edits for the book that's sold--yeah, it's probably not going to happen, I know. But it's still a goal I'm working towards. So I give myself that day, but I don't dare give myself much more.

I do other, less productive, things. I obsess over how crappy my vague conception of the next chapter would actually be in execution. "Oh, great idea, Dave. So the woman duellist who's posing as her dead brother goes to the prison to see her old professor, and he spends the entire time LECTURING TO HER about the impending revolution? Really interesting." Rule #1 for me (maybe my only rule) is Don't Be Boring. Lectures are boring. So are people talking about things that are going to happen. Rather, things should happen. So I get annoyed with myself and start to pick apart the characters and think about how much fixing the second draft is going to need and how I should have researched the French Revolution more and maybe I should stop thinking about this and have a drink but wait, maybe the character should be drunk! (This is something I'm trying to train myself out of--the Benjy section in The Sound and the Fury is a marker for me, and subconsciously I tend to want to spice up boring scenes by fucking with the character's perceptions through intoxication or other impairments. Need to not do that.)

I don't, as an aside, tend to get as far as thinking that my book sucks. The thing to remember about sucking is that you can fix it in the next draft. The key is just to not make any mistakes so horrible that you end up having to rewrite everything to correct them. (SEE IT'S THAT EASY. Aren't you grateful for having read this?) I know what I'm doing, mostly. The end product may not be perfect, but it'll work. It's just that, for the time being, I'm stuck.

The thing is, the real solution tends to be counter-intuitive. I have to not think about the book for a while. Going for a walk helps. Seeing a movie, or a book that's sufficiently absorbing to make me not think about how it's put together, can also help. And then sleeping on it. Because--and again, this is specific to the way I write--my subconscious does a lot of the connective work, and finds ways to learn from that bit that I read the night before, or that stray thought the other day, or that spicy meal last week. Things snap into place.

Seems like sometimes the best writing strategy is to do something else.