Writing: Your Subconscious and You
Filed Under: My Writing, Writing Process, creativity
I have a very rocky relationship with my subconscious.
On the one hand, my subconscious is the font of my best ideas. Even when I writing something that has come mostly from ego-brain thinking, it inserts cool things, catches ideas that I missed the first time around. It’s sometimes like having a better writer sitting on your shoulder catching your missed opportunities.
On the other hand, my subconscious’s interests are not always marketable interests. My subconscious feeds me stories about Kansas about once a week. The state needs to start writing me checks for the PR. Lord knows they need a positive face what with all the wackos that populate my home state. So I write a lot of stories about Kansas or set in Kansas. I’ve yet to find a market for that stuff, and I doubt anyone wants to read about it. And yet my subconscious persists. I’m wrestling with Potatohead (that’s what I call my subconscious) right now about a story that involves mole men and Kansas. Excited to read that one? Yeah, didn’t think so. I keep telling him, we need postsingularity stories that use the entire galaxy as their setting. We need fantasy stories that take place in the New York subway system. What does he feed me? A story about a woman whose abusive dead husband comes back made out of potatoes after being buried int he garden.
Yeah, I actually wrote that one. The rejection Nick gave it at Clarkesworld was enough to put me off writing for a year. Not one you’ll probably ever read. There are a lot of these.
On rare occasions, one of us presents an idea that the other finds just as fascinating. My story “The Yeti Behind Me” is a good example. The idea of ghosts of extinct animals popped up in conversation. I felt the indication of Potatohead’s interest in the form of an explosion just behind my right eye. Potatohead is not subtle. But if we agree on something straight away, I know it’s got legs.
Problem has been, lately, I have stopped trusting Potatohead. He’s fixated on the same things much of the time. He’s not giving me ideas that I can get excited about. And vice versa. I spend all day thinking of story ideas and asking “Hey, Potatohead, what do you think of this one?” His response is generally a resounding “meh.”
I feel like the two parts of my brain are at war lately Each one knows something useful about writing, but they are not agreeing on things nearly often enough for me to feel like I’m moving forward with my “career.” I can write stories based primarily on the input of one half, but those stories are flat, and aren’t going to take me anywhere.
There’s one other, unrelated thing about Potatohead that ticks me off. When I’m asleep, people can talk directly to Potatohead. I have had long and varied conversations in my sleep that I conciously have no recollection of. The thing that gets me into trouble is, Potatohead doesn’t know that I/we are married.
Sarah has come to bed late on several occasions, only to see me shoot upright in bed and demand “Who is that?”
“It’s me,” she says.
“Me WHO?” Potatohead asks.
“Sarah,” she says, beginning to be a bit more exasperated.
“Sarah WHO?”
And that’s the last straw. “Your WIFE,” she snaps. “Go back to sleep.”
“Oh. Okay,” says Potatohead and down he goes back to where he came. And the only indicator I have that this conversation ever happened is that my wife is pissed at me all morning for no apparent reason.
How does one force his or her two minds to sit down and come to some kind of amicable agreement? We have crap that needs to get worked out if we are going to continue to make a career of working together. This partnership is turning sour, and I need to straighten things out quickly. I also need to get it through Potatohead’s half-brain that asking “Sarah WHO?” is not a good thing for either of us. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
On Richness
Filed Under: My Writing, Writing Process, creativity
Lately, I’ve been trying to identify where my writing really differs from the stuff that’s great, great writing. There are a hell of a lot of places, but I’ve fixated for a while now on this concept of richness.
The stories that *really* blow me away exude information and confidence. They are full of a richness of detail that is boggling. Telling details show up in nearly every sentence. The entire story works to convince you of this place, these characters, these events.
A great example of a story with amazing richness was David Moles’ “Finnisterra.” I think China Mieville’s novels demonstrate it pretty well too. I see it in many of the stories I have read by Gord Sellar as well. Basically, I see richness as one of the defining qualities of award-winning writing.
The rich telling details are rarely fabricated whole cloth. They’re believable because they draw from some real world knowledge. David uses multiple languages and cultures effortlessly because he knows them intimately. China writes about cities because he dwells in them completely. London is not so different from his fantastical cities. And Gord is so immersed in Korean culture it can’t help but ooze onto the page in a totally engaging way.
I struggle with richness in particular because I’m not sure there’s any way to learn richness other than to immerse yourself in a subject like they do. I think the reason many new writers work fall flat for me is because the only thing they are immersing themselves in is writing and SF/F. The mark of someone who really wants to get out there seems to be someone who takes passion for something else and really drives that home in a story.
There may be veins of richness to tap into from my life, but I’m not sure. It leaves me wishing I could pack up and do some foreign travel for six months all while reading travelogues and history books. I feel like I just don’t have enough packed into my brain that isn’t about computers and web design that can be used to enrich my work.
So that’s the next big thing I’m working on in improving my writing. What’s yours?
Why You Should Apply to Attend LaunchPad Next Year
Filed Under: Writing Advice
TheLaunchPad Astronomy Workshop has been held three times now, each summer in Laramie, Wyoming. This project is the brainchild of Jim Verley and astronomer/SF writer Mike Brotherton. The goal of the workshop is to help expand the audience for science literate fiction and other popular endeavors. This year, we not only had science fiction writers in attendance, but also comedians and poets. Utlimately, I think it would be great to have some screenwriters for film and television attending as well. Especially considering how much we harp on Armageddon during the workshop.
The goal of the workshop is not to turn you into an Analog-style hard SF writer. The goal is to make sure you understand some of the basics of astronomy so that, even if you’re writing fantasy, you can get those details right. So that maybe you will *want* to write a story about the phases of the moon or about orbital mechanics in some way. Each year, several straight-fantasy authors attend and get just as much out of it as the nerds like me who already have a decent amount of astronomy science under our belts. I even had one major misconception of mine corrected. About the Earth’s axial tilt.
It’s a week of intense classwork, telescope viewing when the weather works, fun meals, a hike, and generally just getting to socialize with amazing people (many who happen to be writers). It will feel like, to quote Gord Sellar, a “pig has shit galaxies into your head.” Ultimately, it’s knowledge, and knowledge has a way of making you a better, richer writer.
When applications open up again next year, I will post about it here, and I expect all of you to flood Mike and Jim with applications. Heh heh.
On July 20th, 1969…
Filed Under: Uncategorized
I wasn’t even a gleam in my father’s eye. Or, as my mother sometimes claims, my genetic material had yet to be manipulated and prepared for insertion by the grays who would abduct her 7 years later.
Still… yay, Moon landing! Had hoped I would see something play out like that in my life time, but I don’t really expect it now.
