The value of a blink

I'm definitely one of those people who believe that writers should write every day, and painters should paint every day, musicians should play music every day, etc. Even if it's just a few minutes. I think that the reason that many don't is because they decide, either consciously or unconsciously, that because those few minutes feel shallow and they can't really get under the surface of things before they have to stop, there's no value to a fifteen minute art sit-down or the addition of a single paragraph to a manuscript.

I think there's a lot of value. I haven't tried to put this into words before, so I hope you'll be patient with me while I thrash it out.

Probably the least important part, and the part that is a focus of programs like Nanowrimo, is that those individual paragraphs add up. And they do. But this is super-easy to shrug off, because if you feel like you don't get to go deep, they're probably lousy paragraphs anyway. I think they always have the potential to be just as good as anything else you might write, but we're discussing writer mentality here, and even I wonder if I might not be writing stupid crud when I sit down for fifteen minutes before work and tap out a quarter of a scene.

I think it's more important to look at it as mental exercise. At first it might be true that those paragraphs written in stolen moments are probably not worth much, but with daily practice, you can't help but get better at dropping in and making quick additions.

Ooo, here's a good one: I don't stop thinking about my books when I go to work, and I get some great ideas there. Or maybe while grocery shopping I'll pick up a can of olives that are on sale and I'll think oh, oh! the contrast of salmony pink/red with purple-y black! and I'll dash home and splash some colors onto a new blank Photoshop screen. I might not have time to do anything more than that, but it's there for me to riff off of when I get some more time. And for those who rely on inspiration, having that inspired moment captured is a good and precious thing, even if they didn't have time to see it through to completion. And an incomplete gesture of inspiration is the norm, unless you're one of those rare people who completes an entire project in a single day. Even then, wouldn't it be nice to have something small and perfect and good every day?

Speaking of incomplete gestures and notes of inspiration, there's no rule that says that when you sit down and write, it has to be on the prose within the manuscript. Especially for books but also for short stories and art, I take notes which end up scattered on all different sizes, shapes and colors of paper all around my desk. Note-taking and planning is also creative time, my friends, and very valuable creative time. That is definitely part of the writing every day rule, and shouldn't be undervalued.

These are all good and true things. So, no more excuses. Write every day, even if it's just for a blink. After all, if we didn't blink, our eyes would dry out. So it is with the arts.

Fitness and Fiction

I think there are a couple of destructive attitudes that exist out there about fitness that get in the way not only of realism but also are missed opportunities for character depth and development.

Attitude One: It's good genes, is all.
Um, no.
A very good friend of mine a very, very long time ago gave my DH a dirty look when he mentioned something about physical fitness and said, to paraphrase, "Well it's easy for you. You've got good genes."
It's never easy, even with good genes. As the years have gone by, my DH and I have to work harder (and eat less) to stay in reasonable shape. And we are not in particularly good shape. I try to look at my workouts as tricks I'm training my body to do, rather than view it as a routine, because routines are boring and never, ever end. For example, the latest trick I'm trying to teach my body is to be able to push up with my hands under my shoulders, flat-backed, from a position where I'm flat against the floor. There's not much leverage from that position. I can do it once if I arch my back a little initially, but that's cheating. After my morning attempt (failure) I usually do some plank exercises in hopes that the next morning, I'll be able to do a real one. And after I've done a real one, I'd like to do, say, five, and then I'll make up some other weird goal for my upper body. For abs, I'm working on a full body belly roll. And for my dex/aerobics, I'm learning how to jump rope again. I used to be pretty good ... when I was eight years old. Now, not so much.
Anyway, even those of us with decent genes can't slack off, so neither can our fictional characters. And many of them don't have gyms to go to, or even a culture that embraces exercise. So either they're going to be engaging in some sort of physical labor, or walking or horseback riding everywhere, or doing some other sort of practical training where there's an obvious pay off.* It's not going to be auto-magic. And by practical, I mean life-saving training where the goal may not necessarily be to look buff, but to stay alive. As the beautiful quote in Zombieland goes, "The first rule of Zombieland is cardio."

Attitude Two: Well, fictional characters have all their off screen time to get into shape and stay in shape, or they can do it with a montage.
Yes, but if it's a daily thing, and there's a lot of variety or a ritualistic quality to it, there's opportunity to show what your characters are made of. Some of them may be the equivalent of gym bunnies and work on their bodies all day, while others could do a short stint of intense exercise and then they're done for the day. Either way, it doesn't have to be some automatic thing to blow off. They should work hard, and be punished or rewarded accordingly. (Don't forget your overuse injuries!) By the way, new research shows that ten minutes of intense exercise a day has the same benefits as hanging out on the treadmill for hours reading a magazine. Sweet! But it has to be intense. So give them an excuse to do something intense every day, or make it part of their training routine, and create some consequences and characteristics that carry over to your story, and see what happens. Three letters. MIB. His fitness and spirit carries through the whole first movie. It's a beautiful thing.

Failing that, consider giving a character an average or even overweight body. Why not? They can still be attractive. In The Ladies' Number One Detective Agency, the main character is 'of tradition build' and is very desirable. We can celebrate health in all different sizes, a full range of capabilities and disabilities in our characters, and have it make sense. Which reminds me, remember, a lot of folks in wheelchairs are athletes too. It's not all about the chair. It's about the person in the chair.

There's a huge variety of awesome humanity out there. If the Phantom of the Opera can be seductive, than anyone can be.

I guess what I'm suggesting, ultimately, is that realism doesn't have to be a drag, any more than real exercise has to be a drag. I love my exercise time (when I get around to it. Ahem.) That's me time. And for those that don't ... you don't have to be Arnold or Demi to be sexy, healthy, happy and effective. Neither do your fictional characters. Give the reality a chance on the page and see what happens, just for fun. There are zillions of sexy long-haired whatevers out there in fiction who get their sleek, fit bodies for free. Dare to be different. Dare to be closer to life, and see what truths you reveal in your story that might not have turned up if you hadn't thought about physicality beyond a description of height and eye color.

And that super-fit guy with the lightning reflexes? There are few things that will gut him faster than not being strong enough to succeed when he's the strongest thing around. Then we'll get to see his real strength, and that's powerful stuff to see on the page, and in real life.

*One of the most painfully laughable scenes I've ever seen on exercise was in Cave Dwellers where the characters had rigged up a weight machine with rough rope, pulleys and rocks. WTF? He's a sword-slinger! You don't think his arms would be strong enough just from that? And he can't afford to be muscle bound. Oh for pity's sake ... but at least they were trying to explain why he looked like a body builder, I guess. Still. Oh. My. Gawd. That was so silly. Conan the Barbarian? Way better. Just saying. Although, it would have made more sense if that wheel wasn't in the middle of nowhere. It would have made more sense if it was in the middle of town or at least near a town and they were grinding wheat or something. Still, better than rock weights. A lot, lot better.

Thrones

Another amazingly gorgeous sunny day in the Pacific NW.
I will, of course, be at my day job. I have to laugh. Well, I'll have a walk during my lunch, and sometimes I have to do stuff outside, so it won't be a total wash.

About leadership as depicted in fiction and film:

Rewatching The Hobbit always does this to me. Why are revered leaders sitting on their asses on thrones? Good, evil, doesn't matter. What exactly made their flat butts worthy of sitting in such an exalted place?

Let's ask this another way. What do good leaders do?

I have a good leader at work. If it weren't for his snappy dialogue, the look in his eyes, and the big red vest, you wouldn't necessarily peg him for the leader if you came into the store in the middle of the day. He stocks shelves and helps customers same as the rest of us. A customer interrupted him as he was answering yet another call (probably from someone needing leadership advice–he fields such calls all day–or from his boss) and he stopped and helped them. Didn't just tell them what aisle something was on. Led them to the product, asked them if he could summon additional help for them as he was on his way to answering a call. Excellent customer service, just like he drills into our heads every day. Leading by example. Working by our sides. Relentless in his mission to make us the best store in the system, and demands more of himself than his employees. This, from someone who will retire in less than two years.

Contrast that to the great orc chieftain, sitting on his ass, barking out orders. Even his ride sits on its ass when the killing of a subordinate is required. I wasn't filled with a sense of dread. I thought, this dude makes his lackeys do all the dirty work, and criticizes them when they get it wrong without any investigation whatsoever. He's got nothing. He's not a badass, he's the kind of bad manager/war cow-er-leader who gets his people killed. Why are they even following him?

The goblin king was even worse. He was comical, pathetic, lazy, self-aggrandizing ... he must have oversnacked and overslept his way to the throne somehow, because he sure didn't get there through leadership or even prowess. He fell over without a fight when he faced his enemies. I couldn't wait to get through that scene because watching that bad guy made me groan in sympathetic embarrassment for whoever designed and executed that scene. If his people had been insubordinate, if there was danger to him and he was barely holding on through bravado, I would have bought it. But no, his minions cheered on their weak, useless leader without sneers or sarcasm, and without backstabbing attempts to take advantage of enemies in their midst to finally get rid of the idiot.

Watch Band of Brothers if you want to see creative non-fiction depict a real leader. Major Dick Winters was so famously good at being a leader that despite his long years of quiet retirement and his death early in 2011, he still inspires the people he led.

One thing  The Desolation of Smaug got very right is the sense of decay, frustration, and misery that comes with bad leadership. (Can't wait to watch that part again!) The kingdom of the wood elves still has splendor–there are those that still care, and passionately–but many are self-medicating, there's the ever-present threat of insubordination, and the leader, terrified of what he sees coming, is barely holding it together. He clings to his throne because it's the only thing he has left. Without that symbol, he's got nothing to keep his people together with anymore. That's drama. That's awesome. I'll watch that all day. That's real leadership, not at its best, but compelling and real and I even sympathized with the king who is slowly, painfully losing everything he holds dear and doesn't know how to save it. And, perhaps not surprisingly if you think about it, I feared the King of the Wood Elves because I could tell how desperate he is.

How much more powerful and dangerous would the orc leader seem if he led by example, praised his troops when they did well, rewarded success, gave them working strategies and tactics to succeed when they failed to succeed on their own, and swore to avenge them when they died? He could still kill his own people, but not for failing him, no, for failing their own brethren and getting them killed through bad strategy, cowardice, etc. What makes evil leaders evil is not their thoughtless savagery. Thoughtless savages don't become leaders. Thoughtless savages need leaders to accomplish anything of any real scope beyond serial killings. Evil leaders can ramp up a sense of rabid devotion like no one else, because they can reward with things that good people would rather die than allow to exist. And evil leaders don't have to feel bad when they employ scapegoats, tap into addictive tendencies, publicly give rewards to undeserving scum to give the star players a little more motivation to prove their worthiness, betray a good soldier to establish a better one for the good of the organization, throw weak and underperforming minions under the bus, etc.

Perhaps the most painful moment in The Hobbit though, from a leadership point of view, was the telling of Thorin's history with orcs. Seriously. Stand on the edge of a cliff and brood while someone sings your praises and tells of your sorrows? Gawd, every real leader I know would be shaking their head and either insisting that it's ancient history and we've got real problems to deal with now, or they'd walk away in embarrassment. They'd protest, don't build me up to the newbie, please. Or, that's not how it happened (because from their pov they were scared spitless and not heroic at all at the battle that cost just about everyone they know their lives. Can we say survivor's guilt? Can we say, thinking over and over about what he could have done instead so that just about everyone didn't have to die that day?)

So, please, writers, get your fictional leaders off their butts and into the action. Even the bad guys. Maybe especially them, so that they don't just fall over at the climax of your big confrontation scene. Thanks!

Sexy Tears

After four rainy days off, I go back to my day job ... on a spectacular sunny day. I think my work schedule is more accurate than the weather man as far as predicting sun and rain.

On to today's topic.

I rewatched Star Trek: Into Darkness, and I have some observations that I hope will be useful. Forgive my wee preamble, please: I actually like this movie a lot, and I'm sure I'll watch it many times. I don't want anyone getting the idea that I thought it was painfully bad and in dire need of shredding.

Uniformity of reaction:
One of the tougher things to do as a writer is to characterize. I mean seriously characterize, as in define and express character. To use a great example of characterization, every one of the Avengers has their own way about that. Part of that is great acting, but acting is restricted by dialogue, the situation, and correction–which means that some of the fault falls onto the shoulders of the writers and director. Into Darkness had characterization problems.
Writers are people (I know, I know, that's just crazy talk but let me finish) and have their own personal reactions to situations. They have verbal tics, like saying "this rocks!" when they like something (or "awesome" or whatever) and they may cry readily ... or stifle sobs rather than go into full cry mode whenever possible. Their own responses are what they know at gut level. The difficulty is to then write characters who react in imagined ways to imagined situations who are not only different from oneself, but different from each other, but still fall into what the writers and director classify as worthy of admiration. In Star Trek: Into Darkness, there's a monotone. Just about every major cast member sheds a sexy tear, including Khan. Khan? Really? Khan the Ice Rage Machine? This very specific, fairly rare, delicate emotion becomes so repetitive that it could be turned into a drinking game.
Characters need to react to emotional situations differently from each other, especially in film where it's all visual and the internal stuff is harder to define and differentiate between characters. In writing, the difference between characters should be crystal clear. Which means, if a writer wants to have any range to her or his cast of sympathetic, admirable characters, that writer has to imagine, before a word is written, how a hothead can express grief and passion in an admirable way, how a genius creative can express grief and passion in a different way, how a cunning, savage mastermind can express grief and passion ... you get the idea. And that's true for every emotion characters express.

The homage:
I was on board with the re-envisioning of the original Spock/Kirk death scene from Wrath of Khan, right up until Spock cried out Khan's name. The original Kirk, yes. New Spock, no. Spock could have gone animal (and I loved how the actor went into enraged gorilla mode on Khan's ass in the following fight scene) right there, total predator. He could have lost it in any number of ways. But the Kirk echo didn't work for me. Wrong character. Not the way Spock would have expressed rage ... with a word. Howl? Maybe. Or total silence, or a growl .... lots of choices. None of them taken. I'm not sure why. Because they went a different route with the New Kirk. I'm scared? Gorgeous. Beautiful. Human. Very unlike the composed and calm Old Spock in the same situation. So why not give New Spock the same option–to be Vulcan-ish, but in the way we don't see Vulcans very often because it's so rare for that primitive side of them to escape? And what is a primitive Vulcan? I propose it's the mindless gorilla with the looping fist strikes that will smash an enemy to unrecognizable pulp before it gets its mind back, and that sort of critter doesn't have words. Yes, yes, Spock is half-human, but that's not what makes him different from Kirk and the other characters. It's his Vulcan nature, a nature so volatile that as-a-race they have tied themselves up and caged themselves because they fear it so much. So, writers and directors of Star Trek–show us why they're scared of it. Maybe there's something even scarier, something truly alien in there that Spock would have revealed. Lost opportunity.

The take-away:
Working out who characters are is something writers like me, who don't outline, discover as we go along (and then sometimes we have to go back and make changes, which is annoying! but necessary.) During the formative period, characters may sound and act the same. Usually they sound and act like whatever idealized heroes we have in our heads. If the writer has been at the game a long time, they may have their go-to archetypes and have some variety in the beginning. Some writers rely on what they've seen and read, so they'll have a cast that strongly resembles, say, the Avengers, or the Fellowship, or Griffindors .... I think that's better than having characters that are all Dirty Harry, but still. Characters are the heart of great stories, and some attention ought to be paid to the important details. Those details aren't in hair and eye color, or shallow details like whether they're a clothes horse or like curry (unless they take it to radical extremes–then it becomes really important!) The details are in the devils, and angels, inside of them. Every scene that evokes powerful emotions in characters is an opportunity to express the uniqueness and beauty of living creatures when they're at their best, or their worst. I hope more writers take advantage of those opportunities, because I want to see what happens when they do.