Mix-and-Match Characters

I played with a cool “puzzle” as a kid: three blocks stacked on top of one another, with a rod threaded through them so they can rotate independently. The result is a 3-cube stack with a different picture on each of the four sides. The top third of each image shows a head, the middle third a body, and the bottom pictures the legs and feet.

Line up the images, and you have four simple characters: for ex., a cartoon tiger, alligator, hippo, and monkey. You can also twist the blocks to connect the monkey body to the hippo head and alligator legs, or connect the alligator body to a tiger’s tail and a monkey’s head. (Now, of course, this puzzle is available as a smart phone app….)

Sometimes I think character creation works the same way: you borrow the geeky appearance of one person, add in the always-in-motion high energy of another, mix in a quirky turn of speech you overheard in the elevator and the girl-next-door’s fluorescent pink high tops…and pretty soon you’ve pieced together your protagonist.

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When Characters Lie: Eight Questions to Ask

Do your characters lie? Lies can lead to additional untruths, misunderstandings, problems that grow bigger each time the character tries to solve things—in other words, lies are a terrific way to build story conflict.

Having your character lie is a terrific plot device—but one that can backfire if you aren’t careful.

Here’s what I mean. In the TV series White Collar, con-man and FBI “consultant” Neal Caffrey tells the occasional untruth. You’d expect as much from a con-man, but the funny thing is that he’s more likely to get what he wants through charm and wit than by lying; and when he has something to hide, he’s more likely to do so by keeping his mouth shut than by concocting an explanation. When he does lie, it’s always for a good reason: to protect someone, to accomplish a purpose that can’t be accomplished otherwise, to hide information from someone he doesn’t trust.

The result? Neal may be a con-man, forger, thief, and professional smooth-talker, but he makes a decent, loyal, and (mostly) trustworthy friend.

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Handwriting, Learning, and the Science of Writing Longhand

Longhand? Keyboard? Pen on parchment? Number 2 pencil on graph paper? Blood on strips of birch bark?

Ask a roomful of writers for their methods of putting words on the page, and you’ll spark a debate as passionate as the outline vs. seat-of-the-pants writing methods.

For speed, you can’t beat typing your story straight onto the computer—and that’s a skill I’m working on. When I hit a creative slump, though, I find that writing longhand lets me tap into my subconscious in a way that clicking keys don’t.

*Photo courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt at the Flickr Creative Commons

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The OCD Writer, Revisited

I’ve written before about the ease with which a writer can drift into obsessive-compulsive behavior. And I have to admit: I’ve succumbed.

Unlike earlier bouts of obsession, when I fought the evil temptations of compulsive email checking (Did anyone respond to my submission yet? How about now? Or now?) and mailbox haunting, I like to think that my current state of…ahem…hyperfocus has been not entirely a bad thing. Maybe even a little bit of a good thing, because I’ve been obsessed with WRITING.

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More gifts you can write

This is a continuation of Monday’s post on gifts writers can create. Lest you think huge projects are the only possibilities, here are some less time-consuming endeavors to round out your gift-giving plans.

• Coupon book: Yep, you’ve probably heard this idea before, but oldies can still be goodies…and who better to come up with a collection of interesting coupons than a creative writer? Print or handwrite coupons for hugs, brownies, moonlit meanders, proofreading services, dog sitting, kisses—you’re limited only by your imagination!

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Computer games: the debate continues

I've written previously on computer games, their impact on kids, and their potential drawbacks and benefits. This is a hotly debated topic in my household, with the kids coming down firmly on one side of the fence (computer time should not be limited!), me on the other (no computer time!), and my husband, ever moderate, somewhere in the middle.

Here's the latest news to fuel the debate: scientists at the University of Bristol's Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences published results of a study of more than 1000 children (ages 10 and 11) in the November edition of Pediatrics, where they report that children who spend more than two hours watching TV, in "recreational computer use," or some combination of the two score higher in measures of psychological difficulty.

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The Infrequent Flyer

I’m writing to you from the Missoula, Montana airport (note the cool mosaic), where I am very very very happy to be and I’m very very happy to be here with all my various bags and devices. Why so happy, you ask?

Because apparently I’m one of those people who shouldn’t fly by herself.

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The Most Influential Tweeters

If you Tweet, you might be interested in recent research from the laboratory of Alok Choudhary at Northwestern University, where grad student Ramanathan Narayanan and colleagues created a website that "uses a specialized algorithm to rank the most influential people tweeting on trending topics".

The result? While celebrities like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga gather huge numbers of Twitter followers, people are paying more attention to tweets from those with greater knowledge.

The website, http://pulseofthetweeters.com/, is an interesting resource for those of us trying to figure out what’s going on in the Twitterverse. Although I haven’t quite figured out how to apply it to what I tweet…which has nothing to do with Britney Spears, Desperate Housewives, or #welcometoChicago :P.

:) Cheryl

* Photo courtesy of Giles Gunthier, Flickr Commons

Music and Mood: Emotion Classification in Contemporary Music

Music is a recurring theme in my writing, so it was with great interest that I read recent news from the Glasgow Caledonian University on how music can impact mood, stress, and even the experience of pain:

 

In a study titled “Emotion Classification in Contemporary Music”, researchers had volunteers listen to a variety of contemporary music that isn’t available to the public, then rank the music in terms of its emotional impact. Project leader Dr Don Knox says, "We look at parameters such as rhythm patterns, melodic range, musical intervals, length of phrases, musical pitch and so on. For example, music falling into a positive category might have a regular rhythm, bright timbre and a fairly steady pitch contour over time. If tempo and loudness increase, for instance, this would place the piece in a more 'exuberant' or 'excited' region of the graph."

I think of music as a language* that we humans don’t fully understand, but one that speaks to all of us. It’s a language birds use to fight, defend territory, boast and brag…a language we humans use to inspire, soothe, comfort, trigger memories, rile up a crowd…I find it fascinating that particular arrangements of sound waves, performed in particular rhythms, volumes, and pitches can influence so many different people in so many different ways.

Music is magical.

At least, it is if you’re writing fantasy :).

Cheryl

*NYC’s Radio Lab produced a fascinating radio show titled “Musical Language,” in which they discuss topics such as research showing that people from multiple different cultures use the same “song” in their words when speaking to infants and “musical illusions”. Check it out!

Work Space and Productivity

As I continue to work my way (slowly) through Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, I continue to experience moments of synchronicity in my life. Cameron’s definition of synchronicity is when you put a request out to the universe—for instance, your desire to take up acting—and the universe replies—for instance, you meet a woman who teaches a beginning acting class at a dinner party.

I think there’s another type of synchronicity: as I learn a lesson from one source, I’m likely to notice complementary lessons elsewhere. For instance, one of the exercises in this week’s chapter was to design a creative space for myself; the idea, although not explicitly stated, is that by surrounding oneself with things that are inspiring, comforting, and beautiful, you free your creative side to come out and play.

It turns out that Cameron’s wisdom, penned nearly 20 years ago, is now backed by scientific research. While a graduate student at University of Exeter in the UK, Dr. Craig Knight performed research on employees’ attitudes, work satisfaction, and productivity as they relate to employee control over workplace environment.

His work challenges the mentality of many corporations, where “managers often create a 'lean' working environment that reflects a standardized corporate identity.” In a study of over 2000 office workers, he consistently found that the more control people have over their work environment, the happier and more motivated they are. In two additional studies, researchers compared the productivity of workers in “lean” environments, “enriched” environments (decorated with plants and artwork), and “empowered” environments (employee-decorated spaces). They found that employees who designed their own work spaces were 32% more productive than those in lean environments without increases in errors.

The lesson for writers: where you work IS important. Giving yourself a place that nurtures your spirit will improve your creativity—and productivity. After all, it’s not just an artsy thing any more: science backs it up!

:) Cheryl 

How a Writer Goes Camping…

She stops at her local thrift store to pick up some inexpensive camping togs...



...then hits REI to stock up on her camping supplies...

...and finally visits Staples to purchase pens and notebooks. Because how can you camp without writing materials?


 
I'll be out of town for a few days to camp with my dad, who has been trying for years to get me to join him on his annual hunting trip in the Colorado mountains. He knows his daughter: it'll make a great story, Cheryl, says he. Blatant bribery.

But I guess it worked, because I'm going! :) It's good to have a dad.

:D Cheryl

Rocky Mountain Chapter SCBWI Fall Conference: Bruce Coville Wows and Inspires

I have a special place in my heart for Bruce Coville’s books. It’s not just that they’re lots of fun—which they are—or that they’re great examples of craft, plotting, and storytelling—which they are. His book Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher saved my life.

This happened a few years ago, when I made one of my overly optimistic cross-country drives from Colorado to Pennsylvania with two kids in tow. Just before Christmas. In horrendous weather.*

After three days of driving and too many hairy moments to recount, we made it to PA late at night, in the middle of a snow storm. We were supposed to spend the night at my sister’s house with her husband and kids because my parents were at the hospital, where my dad had just had surgery. I’ve been to my sister’s house. It’s a large white farmhouse with a red barn only just off the road and, theoretically, it’s not that hard to find. At least, it’s not that hard to find in the daylight. At night, in a snowstorm, in one of the darkest counties in PA, when one’s brain is theoretically addled from WAAAY too many hours on the road, it’s another story. I drove up and down that road without seeing it.

Meanwhile, the snow is getting heavier, my eyelids are dragging, and both kids are awake and pathetic in the back seat.

What does this have to do with Bruce Coville, you ask? Well, it was his story, performed by his audio book company Full Cast Audio, that kept me awake and kept the kids and I sane for much of the cross-country drive and for ALL of that stressful night. We listened to it as we searched for my sister’s house. We listened when I finally gave up and headed to my parent’s house, even though I knew it was empty. We listened to it as we slipped and slid our way down their very long, very snowy driveway and I left it on for the kids while I stomped through snow drifts trying to find an open door and, when there wasn’t one, breaking into the house. We listened to it over the next week every time we drove from one house to another, because this was rural PA, where the minimum driving time between any two locations is 25 minutes. We listened to it when the cousins joined us in the car and we needed entertainment (so that I didn’t go crazy in my stressed-out, overtired state.)

So: it was with great interest that I sat down Saturday morning for Coville’s Keynote address. I came to the conference seeking inspiration and encouragement—and he didn’t disappoint. But more on that in a few days…

:) Cheryl

*Yes, I know. The weather is BOUND to be horrendous somewhere along a cross-country drive at that time of year. See overly optimistic, above…

Flora and fauna reports a la The Artist’s Way

Tuesday morning, for the first time in a while, I woke up feeling energized and ready to face the day. This comes during week three of working through Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, which is a fantastic course on getting your head straight as well as fostering creativity.

In it, Cameron writes about the importance of taking time to notice things. “Flora and fauna reports,” is her example, an aunt’s lengthy letters detailing the flowers blooming in her garden, the cottonwood’s leaves, and other snippets of beauty and joy. My ability to notice and enjoy the world around me is one of the things I like about myself—but when I get crazy busy, it’s one of the first things I stop doing. I duck my head and plow forward, trying to survive one day to the next.

So Monday night, I took a break from the endless to-do’s to spend a little time in my garden. Not long: I spent about half an hour watering flowers, pulling weeds, and collecting windfall apples from my lawn to compost. For half that time, I press-ganged my older son into picking apples with me as the sun sank behind the mountains. I got my hands wet and muddy; the smells of crushed mint and sage filled the air from the flower beds; and we ended up with a full compost bin and a colander full of red and green apples.

I spent the next half hour luxuriating in those apples, cutting and chopping (there were quite a few bad spots to remove) and plopping them into a few inches of water in my pressure cooker. I have a great pressure cooker cookbook by Lorna J. Sass, so I turned to it for guidance on how long to cook apples to make applesauce. Instead, I found a recipe for cranberry applesauce…and since I had a wayward bag of cranberries in my freezer, I decided to give it a try. I added one bag of frozen cranberries and about two cups of water to my apples (6 cups or so), brought the pot to pressure, and cooked for 5 minutes (the advantage of a pressure cooker!). Then I put it all through an applesauce maker (a sort of pot with a strainer on the bottom and a hand-turned crank that presses the soft fruit through the strainer while leaving peels and seeds behind), added a few tablespoons of chopped candied orange peel (the recipe called for orange zest, but I didn’t have any), a bit of sugar and a dollop of agave nectar…

…and the result was this jewel-toned creation. It satisfies the senses in every way: bright, colorful, tart, sweet, yummy.

And the next morning I awoke refreshed. Coincidence? I prefer to think of it as a sign that I’m on the right track.

:) Cheryl

The morning after…

The morning after the Eastern Traditional Archery Festival, the staff (and supporting kids and sisters) all gathered to eat piles of pancakes and share stories of the weekend…

…stories of the guy who towed his dog around in a garden cart, because it had recently had back surgery and there was no one home to take care of it, so rather than skip the festival he brought the dog along. Of course, the dog threatened to bite everyone who came within ten feet of him…

…stories of the guys who were going to jump the guard rail and climb down the bank to avoid paying the entry fee, and how the other people walking to the gate stopped them…

…of my brother reading what must have been a prank name entry in the end-of-show door prize drawings…

…of the group—the ??? Society—that gathered around midnight every night to chant and yell goofy slogans…

…of the tornado that touched down only a few miles away from where 500+ campsites were set up all over the ski resort grounds…

 

The point is that the best stories come out when you gather a group of people together like this, all of them exhausted from the event, pumped up on shared work and experience. It’s a special kind of storytelling that happens only in the aftermath of some challenge, whether it’s camp, a cross-country drive, or putting on a major archery festival.

I like it—and yep, I took copious notes :). (Names will be changed to protect the not-so-innocent….)

:) Cheryl

Portable Prose

I’m writing from the road again, this time from PA—and I have to say, the scenery couldn’t be more different than when I last wrote. I’ve traveled from the desert sunshine of Lake Powell, Utah, to Potter County, PA, where the world is green and lush and—for my first few days here—very, very wet.

 

Since I was traveling here for the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, you’d think this would be a problem, but the rain cooperated. Mostly. That is, it cleared up long enough for some outdoor fun on Friday and Saturday, and when it rained, well, we wanted to spend some time checking out all the vendors inside, right?

 

My writing brain is a bit dizzy right now, though, because I have so many projects to think about. (Yes, I’m on vacation. This is what I do for fun. Think about writing projects :).) These include:

1. Setting research for my next book, which will take place in PA. (I love Pennsylvania. I love it even more as I look at it with a writerly eye, taking note of ferns and skunks and the smell of crushed mint along the streams and the way a sudden downpour floated a bin of t-shirts right out of the big tent at the archery festival….)
2. Putting together a few nonfiction queries for new magazine markets I’m trying to break into.
3. The YA rewrite (Voice), which seems a little less daunting if I look at it slantwise, like when I’m hiking or driving down a rainy road.
4. And, of course, the miscellaneous to-do’s needed to keep current projects moving forward: reviewing an article galley, answering emails, collecting and processing manuscripts for the Rocky Mountain Chapter SCBWI’s 2010 Manuscript Critique

Maybe that’s what vacations are for: letting old ideas simmer, collecting new ideas, recharging, and playing. This is my “working” vacation, the one where I’m carrying about notebooks filled with prose and projects…but I don’t feel like I’m working. I feel kinda like I’m playing hooky to do all the writing things I don’t usually have time to do.

And that, dear readers, is a very good thing!

:) Cheryl

Things I love about writing on the road

Summer vacation descended on my household like a flash flood: sudden, overwhelming, and somehow unexpected, even though we do live in the flood plain, so to speak. I guess I'm one of those people who gets so absorbed in the present that I perpetually forget about what's coming down the pike...or maybe I'm just a goofball. That's also a distinct possibility.

In any case, I like getting out and away from the hamster wheel of cooking, cleaning, email, errands...there are still things I have to do when I'm traveling, but it's different.






But I digress. What I really wanted to write this post about was how travel can enrich your writing life. Hope I inspire you to hit the road this summer--and bring along your pen!

Things I love:

1. Removal of distractions clears my mind.
2. Change of scenery inspires new setting details.
3. Change of scenery triggers ideas for nonfiction articles.
4. People-watching: travel takes me out of my usual Boulder circles.
5. Long car drives provide uninterrupted time to talk, think, listen to a new book on CD, or read aloud to each other.
6. Escape from the usual bombardment forces everyone to find other kinds of entertainment--like cards, photography, badminton, and practical jokes.
7. Quiet time let's my wandering mind come up with lots of ideas and frees creative blocks.
8. Ample opportunities to eavesdrop on conversations and quirky actions perfect for character development.

The key to a writing vacation, Cheryl-style, is lots of unscheduled, unstructured time--and that's what I'm getting this week. It's heaven.

Happy writing!

Cheryl


-- Post From My iPhone

Hope and Inspiration on the Writing Road

My friend Laura just showed me the new-new-new-new-new beginning for her YA novel Bone Temple. It’s the result of much soul-searching (and head-banging?) after reviewers at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference pronounced the old opening unsatisfactory. (I disagreed :).)

The new opening—the one I didn’t think she needed to write—is magical. It’s engaging, curiosity-inspiring, and absolutely perfect.

Laura is one of my favorite YA fantasy writers, which is unfortunate for most of the world because she hasn’t yet “broken into” the YA publishing scene. Luckily for me (and my kids, who occasionally kidnap her manuscripts when I bring them home for critique), I’m in her critique group and get to enjoy her stories. I’ve gotten to watch over the years as her writing—always very good—deepened and became more magical.

In case you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m an avid Laura fan. If her books were in print, I’d own every single one…and this latest surpasses them all, with words, character, setting, and story twining together like strands in a cord. It’s the kind of book that makes your heart ache with both sympathy and joy, the kind of book that takes you for a gripping ride and ultimately satisfies.

Laura exemplifies the many reasons that my writing friends are so dear to me. It’s not just that we get each other (which we do) or that we’re crazy in many of the same ways (which we are); it’s also that, as I watch Laura’s writing journey, her ups and downs along the way and her amazing growth as a writer—it gives me hope as I travel my own writing path.

:) Cheryl

Writing in Breck

I left my husband, two boys, and two dogs to fend for themselves for several days while I headed to the mountains to work hard on three different WIPs*, eat thee gourmet meals a day courtesy of our lovely hostess, Cicily, lounge in overstuffed chairs in front of the fire, meditate in the hot tub….

Ahhh.

I do feel a smidgeon of guilt for having such a wonderful time without my family, but they’re the very best family ever to let me go and work so very, very, very hard.

Really :).

I took a fantastic creativity hike up the mountain behind the house, which resulted in plot ideas galore for the new novel—a novel that is, as yet, only a hodge podge of characters, settings, and concepts. Here are some of the bike “terrain park” obstacles I discovered atop the mountain behind the house:

Happy writing!

:) Cheryl

*because I’m an optimist. Yes, let’s call it that—sounds much better than crazy.

And now, for something completely different!

Phew. It seems like I’ve been writing a lot of loooong posts lately! I’ve pulled together some good info, I hope—but I feel like it’s time for some lighter fare.

Such as:

• Weird and cool science news (which I’ve been reading a lot of lately)
• Awesome books to read (which I’ve also been reading a lot of—an extremely pleasant occupational hazard)
• How to wolf whistle.

I mean, informational blog posts are great and all, but that can’t be all we read, right?

Confession: I don’t actually know how to wolf whistle, but it seems like such a valuable skill that I just had to mention it. You may be wondering: is there, in fact, an eHow article on Wolf whistling technique?

Yes! There is! There’s also a wikiHow article as well as a number of How-To videos like this one. (I love living in the computer age….)

Challenge for the week: now that I’ve uncovered these amazing resources, can you learn to wolf whistle? Can I? Can I do so without convincing my friends and family that I’m nuts?

I’ll update you next week…

:) Cheryl

New Project-itis

I have work I’m supposed to be finishing—two nonfiction projects on two different, very interesting topics. I’ve given myself a schedule complete with deadlines, and every morning around 8:30 I’m seated at my desk surrounded by research, interview notes, index cards, notebooks, pens, and color-coded highlighters.

And then I think of the-best-ever idea for a craft/nonfiction book proposal/article/story, which thoroughly distracts me from the project I’d planned to work on.

Anyone else have this problem? I call it “New Project-itis.” Any project idea I have while in the midst of the grinding work for my CURRENT project is, by definition, superior in every way.

Sigh. I’m learning to jot down the idea in my idea log, set it aside for later, and plug along on the real work of writing, which is always less exciting than daydreams and brainstorms…but is the only way to actually get to a polished product!

:) Cheryl