Back Like a Cheesy Sequel, or Plotting with PowerPoint

So, it's been a while, but I'm back to a place where I want to blog.  Chalk it up to wanting accountability and/or a place to play with pictures.  Or, something like that.

Mostly, I've been simmering this idea about novel planning and I want to put it somewhere.  Okay, my friends, think on this: PPT can do everything, including helping you plot. 

Over the summer, I was listening to someone talk about planning a grant proposal.  She said she was such a verbal thinker, and she was so used to using PowerPoint to help her plan talks/lessons, that she made the leap to using PPT to help her outline proposals.  Bam!  It clicked in place in my head, because any time I'm preparing to do a presentation these days, PPT is where I start.  Sometimes, my friends, I think in PPT. 

Why not apply the same process to a novel?  Right now, I'm puttering around with a novel idea about a golem maker and I have some notes on key plot points.  The hard part about notes is that they're hard to move around.  When you decide that complication Y should come before plot twist X instead of after, etc. your page of notes becomes a page of notes and doodles.  One of the solutions to this is using index cards, but they're still so... permanent.  If you want to take plot point Z and chunk it into two parts, you still have to do a lot of re-noting.

PPT is like magic.  So easy to manipulate.  Plus, who doesn't like playing around with graphics?  Add hearts to the scene when the love interests confess their feelings for each other.  A dagger is a nice accent to the scene where the body is discovered.  For those of us who're visual thinkers, the ease of adding graphics is a definite bonus. 

I officially make it my mission to collect my novel notes and translate them all into PPT.  I'm also tentatively planning to do NaNo this year, so the two things are natural partners.

Do you have any brilliant novel planning tools?  What works well for you?

Moving, Work and Technomology

"Somebody needs to update her blog!" Jenny said.

"Who?" I asked innocently.

Jenny narrowed her eyes and scowled at me. "You know who." This was followed by the signature Jenny finger-point.

"Dude, I have no internet at home. I have a real job now, and I just moved."

Jenny folded her arms over her chest, clearly not impressed. "I don't care," she said. "Don't be a slacker."

Can't you just feel the love?

Now that I'm actually all the way moved (Don't even ask, just know: never agree to rent a place that's not done yet. Just don't do it.) I can make arrangements to get some interweb set up at home. In the meantime, I've got a handy new library card to use at my new library.

More posts in the near future, I promise, Jenny.

A Poetry Hijacking

I spent some time at the bar the other night, listening to a band and reading over a few of Jenny's serial killer poems (Jenny talks about them a bit in this post). While I was there, I ran into a gal I know and her first question was, "What are you reading?"

When I told her I was reading a series of poems about Ted Bundy (I had read the Edmund Kemper series earlier that day), there was some eyebrow raising, followed by, "Can I see?"

I handed her one. She read it. Then she motioned for me to hand her the rest of the stack. I passed over about thirty more poems. Right then in there, in the dim light of a crowded bar while a local band played loudly on the other side of the room, she read every single one of them.

Now, I've got to say, if you've never had the experience of watching someone else read a series of poems about a serial killer, it's interesting. Mostly there was a lot of big eyes. In a few places, her hand flew to her mouth in classic startled/horrified form. Once or twice, she leaned over to her boyfriend (who had tried to read, but couldn't on account of the bad light) and read a stanza or two out loud to him.

I did get the poems back, eventually, but I had to wait patiently until this woman was finished, because I would have had to wrestle them away from her otherwise. I didn't want to risk it, so I took another sip of my cocktail and turned to watch the band while she read.

Two-fer, or We All Need Our Demons

Amanda's been giving me a hard time lately. See, her husband has been relocated to Arkansas for his job, which means she's moving in June. This also means that she needs to have her thesis done and defended by then. Since she just started working on her thesis in January, this puts her on a tight schedule.

The hard time comes in with the part where she's having to whiz through her thesis and I stalled out on mine.

Amanda: What progress have you made with your thesis this week?
Me: Um... er...
Amanda: (gives me a look that says she's totally unimpressed) Ali, you need to work on your thesis. I have to get mine finished by May so I can defend it in time. May! How long have you been working on yours?
Me: Uh, a while.
Amanda: If I have to haul butt on my thesis, by God, you're going to work on yours.
Me: I am, really, I am.
Then Amanda crosses her arms in front of her and scowls at me.

This is a conversation we've had a few times. Most recently, being today. Yesterday I cleared off my kitchen table, making it just right for holding my thesis and critiqued copies of my thesis to work from. Today I sat down at said table and revised two thesis stories.

So there, Amanda :p

Two-For-One

I saw not one, but two authors yesterday.

At two o'clock I went to a poetry reading by David Keplinger and then was off right after to make my way to Christopher Moore.

The poetry reading was good, and I got to say "Hi" to David, though it was a brief "Hi."

Then, after a few car pool-related stops, Jenny, Shane, John, Oliver and I arrived in Boulder. I bought a copy of A Dirty Job which Moore signed. I also got a copy of his new book, Fool for Deb, which caused some confusion. For the signings, the bookstore staff passed out sticky notes for us to write the personalized messages we wanted Moore to write. By pure chance, when it was my turn, Moore got the "To Deb" first.

Moore: Hi Deb.
Me: Oh, I'm not Deb.
Moore: Huh? (He looked very confused, probably because he also looked very tired)
Me: That book's for a friend. The other one's mine.
Moore: Oh, right.

No writing/revising got done, but I'm giving myself a pass because I saw two authors and drove to Boulder and back all in one day.

Speaking the Same Language

In my Composition classes we've been talking about cultural issues, like language and culture clash. We've been talking about using MLA because writing is a conversation and MLA is the language we use. It's all about being able to speak the same language, only then can we have a conversation.

Today I had a meeting with Juan for my thesis. I feel like we're not speaking the same language yet. His definition of magical realism is a pretty hard-core, Gabriel Garcia Marquez one. Magical realism means "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." Okay, I can appreciate that.

However, I also find it problematic to use only that definition. Why? Because of the "magic" part. You look cross-culturally and the common denominator of what magic is, is a description of seeming. Things that seem to be magical, are. It is belief in the magic that makes it real. Magic becomes a description of reality. With me so far?

So, then I start thinking of a less literal description of magical realism - manipulation of our accepted perception of reality. A broader umbrella. Beneath that umbrella falls Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried because the whole book is a conversation about what reality is and how reality and truth are not always synonymous. How things seem becomes more important than how things are. Again, we're back to describing reality.

In my mind, it's all inter-connected and magical realism is a first-cousin to metafiction and ways of story-telling. I briefly mentioned Tim O'Brien as a magical realist author to Juan, and got a very skeptical reaction. I couldn't articulate my thoughts at the moment, so I dropped it.

Bottom line: right now we're not quite speaking the same language. I've got to figure out how to articulate it in a way that's clear before I can make progress on my theoretical defense portion. I've got to figure out how I translate Tim O'Brien into Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Readers Aren't MIND Readers/The Redundancy Wall

Last week Jenny put up this post about struggling as a writer. She puts it well.

During that conversation I whined a bit about feeling tired of hearing myself write. It's something which gets superbly illustrated when one goes from a small to large page count. All of a sudden, I keep thinking "I always write X that way, I'm so redundant." Since everything I'm writing is so immediate and in such quantity, all kinds of patterns pop out. I have certain ways I like to phrase things, certain types of gestures common to my characters, etc.

A couple days earlier, I was working on a piece and had the thought, "I've already written this story. I'm just repeating myself." I don't remember which story I had that thought during, but the thought itself was clear and frustrated.

So, I asked Jenny a little about my thesis (though she's saving the bulk of her input for the CWC meeting tonight) and then I whined. She let me for a moment, then responded to my redundancy whinge with, "You're okay. As a reader, I don't see it."

At the moment I'm juggling three stories. I have a clear idea of how I want two of them to play out, but I'm struggling with actually putting the words on paper. Thinking about the point Jenny made helps, but I still feel like I'm pushing against, rather than through, the wall, (which is made of granite and at least four feet thick).

How do I write them without feeling bored with myself again?

Deb Knows

A while back, Jenny and I talked a little about finding the theme(s) in my thesis. Her main piont being that even if I couldn't see the links, as soon as an objective reader read it, they'd spot 'em easily. It's a matter of me being too close.

Last night, Deb and I got to the pirate meeting a bit early. While we chatted, she said, "Hey, I know what your thesis is about." Then she said three words.

I said, "Huh. Yeah, I see it."

Now the really interesting part will be if the rest of the CWC pulled out the same connection. I figure either they'll all be pretty much on the same page, or their thoughts will be pretty diverse. Either way would be fun.

Pointing Things Out

I'm at dinner last night with the gang, when Fred says, "So, do we get to read the thesis?"

I replied, "Actually, you've already seen some of it."

I started naming the stories I've submitted to the group, and a couple of times he said, "Oh, I like that one." (Huzzah! Somebody actuall likes something!) Then I realized that all but one of the thesis stories have gone through the group. I never noticed that until last night.

It made me think of when I was talking with Jenny the other day and the thesis came up. I said I was still wrestling with this idea of having a unifying factor in the thesis vs. just having a collection of stories. She just shrugged. "They're already talking to each other, you just don't know it yet. Put 'em all together, hand it over, and we'll tell you how."

Which just goes to re-iterate the idea that readers are usually better at knowing what a writer is saying than the writer themself.

The Pen Made Me Do It

I tend to talk about writing within a somewhat mystical framework. It's a process which isn't always what you expect it to be and somewhat known for going in directions other than the writer planned. Because of this, I'm only half joking when I talk about Voodoo. Writing longhand, especially, lends itself to a magic.

The other day I got a fountain pen. Then, thinking about my goal this month of writing two new stories, I started working on figuring out what I would write.

"We will write poetry," says the pen.

"But, my goal is to write two new stories. I don't have time to write poetry."

"We. Will. Write. Poetry," the pen insists.

"Hey now, I'm the writer here."

"Yes, but I am how you write. I am a fountain pen with a flat nib, and I have the power to change the very look of the letters you write. Notice how cool 'w's look now."

"Alright, you make a good point there. I still have that goal, though."

"You'll get over it. Besides, your most important goal is to write what comes to you, not to just write according to plan. So, aren't you really more obligated to blow off your writing goals than to meet them?"

"Okay, fine. We'll write poetry." So I pull out one of my recycled school notebooks.

"Um, excuse me."

"Now what?"

"We are not writing on that crappy paper. I'm too good for that garbage, and I don't like white paper, it's much too pedestrian."

"It's the only paper I have."

"No it isn't. You got that pack of parchment style paper two years ago and still have most of it. We are going to write on colored parchment style paper."

"Good lord. Okay, are you happy now?"

"Well, we really ought to have colored ink. This black thing isn't working for me. I'm feeling in a red mood today."

After assembling the necessary supplies, I pack up and head for the library. There's an empty table toward the back of the non-fiction shelves. I sit down and pull out my writing gear. "Right, here goes. Red ink. Tan parchment paper. Poetry."

"Great. Now we're going to write about Vikings."

"What do Vikings have to do with anything? You're kidding, right? I mean, really... Vikings?"

"Vikings," the pen insists. "And put one in a coffee shop."