Galls & Walnuts

books, writing, and a strange life

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Category: Writing

  • Drafting is the Worst

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    A little stream of consciousness…

    I feel like I am running out of time to write sometimes. I was just marveling at the arrival of October, and now we are almost done with it! Have I made much progress on Eclipse? It often fees like I haven’t, but being kind to yourself while writing is difficult.

    Drafting is tearing me up. I tumble through hours of work at my actual job, into hours of working on my draft. At times, I feel my body falling apart from the stress of keeping my life together, the insanity of American politics, an upcoming election, climate catastrophes, and the increasing costs of living, yet in this moment of extreme uncertainty and work, I am ecstatic to have pulled my writing drive out of the pits of idleness… even when I think I’ve written slop.

    I feel like I should be depressed and anxious about every problem the news spits out at us at every second. In reality, fear breeds inaction at every level of life. I have too much to do to be worried about everything that could kill me, my friends, my family, strangers, puppies, and kittens.

    My eyesight worsened from staring at screens all day and I gained a little weight because I need one less thing to keep track of. I traded martial arts for walking, and work out two or three days a week instead of five so I can stop obsessing over what American society wants me to worry about and obsess over what I want to worry about: writing.

    Drafting has felt like the worst of my problems because it has been forcing me out of my comfortable place of inaction and perfectionism. It has been different writing even when I think the progress of the day is weak. Filling up the plot with rising action has been a struggle as I navigate the dreaded middle of my book, knowing where I roughly want to take the story, but discovery has lagged behind into a bunch of scenes I now have to rewrite.

    The silver lining in all of this is that I paid my bills, so I can rest easy as I trudge on—cramping fingers and carpal tunnel be damned—dishing out what I think (hope, really) is a relatively original story.

    Yet in the turmoil of it all, this is therapeutic. There is nothing like living in the present, turning current events into a fantasy novel to make sense of the world I live in. It provides a unique sense of hope, and is a far healthier alternative to doom scrolling.

    It can be tough pushing through. Something gets put down on paper—no matter how raw, trashy, inconsistent, incomplete, worrisome, cliche, repetitive, ridiculous, repulsive, hideous, eye-rolling, and boring.

    No draft is a masterpiece.

    If only I had known this earlier. I suppose better late than never.

  • Library Haul: Writing Books

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    I had a bad habit of not reading enough books about writing. There are so many online references that give good advice, but with the homogenization of the internet, it’s interesting to find more colorful resources from before algorithms and learning language models were mainstream.

    I used to scoff a bit at books about writing because the ones that I was used to reminded me of college writing courses where the acceptable style was essentially anything that could be compared to the Great American Novel or Franz Kafka.

    I spent years thinking I had to abandon my genre preferences to fit in with the cool kids writing clubs. Although I am still developing a style and working on my craft, an incredible art video (forgot the name again) taught me some important lessons, and I became inspired to read some writing books for personal growth even if I don’t necessarily follow all of the practice exercises within.

    At my library, I found two books in particular with some pretty solid advice:

    The Jane Austen Writer’s Club by Rebecca Smith and The Art of X-Ray Reading by Roy Peter Clark.

    The Jane Austen Writers’ Club

    Rebecca Smith is a distant niece of Jane Austen, and writing does indeed run in the family. As an Austen fan, this was a wonderful book to read in that it provided several writing lessons about plot and characterization that both Smith and Austen deconstruct.

    One of my favorite takeaways from the book is the narrative technique called free indirect speech where the third-person narrator mixes their voice with the character’s perspective, thoughts, and rhythm. The characters thoughts are placed into the prose naturally, keeping the emotions, viewpoints, and even some slang typical of the character.

    The Art of X-Ray Reading

    Roy Peter Clark’s book discusses literary writing strategies that help generate meaning beyond the words of the page. In other words, he takes the works of literary masters and uses them as prime examples for writing mood, creating meaning through imagery and common objects, and organization of prose.

    This book helped to break down the organization of prose by helping me find common patterns in my own writing. I tend to overuse passive voice, too many synonyms, and similar sentence starters. This book made me more aware of these shortcomings so that I can get rid of them early in the drafting phase.

    Takeaways

    Although I’m not trying to write perfect drafts the first stime (this is impossible), these books have been valuable in helping me locate, assess, and fix common problems with my own prose. I highly suggest them.

  • Strand Bookstore Haul

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    Recently, Hubby and I went to New York City to visit friends, family, and old school stomping grounds.

    One of them is the Strand Bookstore, a historic bookstore known for its “18 Miles Of Books” in Book Row—a six-block ribbon of used and antiquarian book shops from 1890 to the present. Strand will be a hundred years old next year, and sadly the last surviving Book Row artifact. No wonder the neighborhood and book lovers pitched in to save it when it nearly closed during COVID-19.

    I honestly don’t need to buy anymore books (the current reading pile is large), but since I had a limited amount of time to spend at the store, I figured a controlled “haul” would be acceptable as souvenirs.

    I mainly wanted a tote—which is now my cat’s favorite unofficial bed, but after flying through the humid shelves, I decided to take a chance on three books.

    I did what I call a “Book Run,” where I had essentially fifteen minutes to find something interesting, then hurry back to Brooklyn.

    The Witch by Marie Ndiaye

    A witch from a small French town is bound into a horrendous marriage. As she passes her knowledge down to her twin daughters, the girls must choose to either stay under the thumb of their abusive father or leave their home and mother behind.

    I love a good story about witches. This one seems interesting because it has layers of realism woven within the supernatural. Plus, I haven’t read too many stories set in the French countryside. It will be a nice change in pace.

    Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

    A disgraced knight named Thomas encounters a young survivor of the Black Death who warns him of the impending destruction of man as Lucifer raises an army of fallen angels.

    I enjoy books (fictional and real) about cults and plagues (I have a bit of that going on in my current novel). This one caught my eye first because of its eye-catching cover, then because of the line an epic tale of medieval horror. I love period pieces with elements of fantasy and horror. I already have a long reading list, but I am excited to get to this one.

    Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences by Anne Lamott and Neal Allen

    I got this one on a whim after seeing two prominent writers on the cover. I look forward to the day my draft is complete and I can go over it with a fine-toothed comb, transforming the sentences into something readable. I haven’t read too much of it yet, but I already appreciate the light-hearted banter between Allen and Lamott as they express their methods for improving sentences.

  • When Worldbuilding Takes You Down The Rabbit Hole of Astrophysics

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    My favorite teapot chai and a bagel with cream cheese in tow, I expected to spend my Sunday afternoon shredding through my story with some new plot developments. Only one problem: there was an extensive hole in my worldbuilding that I had not yet fully solved: the rotational axis of my world.

    Worldbuilding is the most riveting, exhausting, and chaotic process, and it is fascinating to watch my map evolve over decades. I first started the world in my tweens, and now I’m a young-ish, middle-aged adult. Clearly, I’ve put an unreasonable amount of time into this world. It might be strange to dwell on a worldbuilding hole when fantasy requires suspension of belief. With that said, realistic, physically possible elements woven between sword and sorcery help to maintain some plausibility in a fantasy world.

    For me, this is how the planet operates because the actions and workings of the world only make sense when the physics of the planet at least ring mostly true. It is important that my world, a planet called Solis (for now), has some realism baked in.

    Tidally Locked Planet

    Originally, I planned for my world to be a tidally locked planet mainly because I require the north pole to be in perpetual winter and the south pole in perpetual summer—leaving the equator and everything between 40 and -40 degrees latitude as the habitable zone of my world.

    The result of a world with such a setup would be a world with temperate, unchanging seasons, and a north pole in permanent darkness and a south pole in permanent daylight, leaving the equator in permanent twilight.

    Although this setup makes for some fun exploration, my world still requires day and night and seasonal changes—all of which would be impossible no matter how I try to make it work.

    I ended up researching everything from binary star systems to gravitational pulls to red dwarfs and red giants to planetary precessions. Was I going to have to upheave all of my plans?

    The Goldilocks Decision

    Fortunately, I did come to a solution that seems somewhat plausible. Bare with me as I try to explain my world’s new conditions with my puny knowledge of astrophysics. My world would have to have the following conditions:

    1. A Highly Eccentric Orbit
    2. Asymmetric Continents and Oceans
    3. Topographical Wind Barriers
    A Highly Eccentric Orbit

    In a typical planet, the north and south poles will swap seasons during the solstices. The planet will experience perihelion (which means closest to the star) during the southern summer, and aphelion (which means furthest from the star) during the northern summer. This creates permanent conditions for winter and a runaway ice age in the north pole, and flash-frying summers with permanent heat in the south pole.

    Asymmetric Continents and Oceans

    Since water helps to retain heat and regulate the temperature of a world, land masses experience temperature swings. I changed my world so that the south pole has a massive landmass with higher elevation and more mountains. The north pole now has an icy ocean, which will absorb some of the summer heat. There is also something called an Ice-Albedo Feedback Loop in which the glaciers reflect incoming solar radiation back into space. This prevents the snow from melting.

    Topographical Wind Barriers

    The intense heat from the south would typically travel north and melt the ice caps. Thus, a chain of high mountains would have to surround the southern polar continent to create a barrier that blocks moisture from reaching the south pole while also keeping the heat away from the rest of the planet.

    I hope I roughly got that right!

    Eventual Apsidal Precession

    Eventually, Planet Solis will wobble and its axis will rotate and the climate between the poles will reverse.

    Why This Is Important

    To be honest, I’m still not sure if any of this is possible, but it seems to be the most reasonable explanation for my worldbuilding choices.

    I am no scientist, but I like to think that I do some research to create reasonably realistic worlds. As I create Solis, I find that it is easier to build cultures and conditions when the geography of the world makes sense. For example, the people of my southern pole are mostly divided from the rest of the world due to the high mountains and deserts. They choose to remain in the desert because the other option is the treacherous, often stormy ocean that has claimed plenty of ships due to its hotter climate.

    I did the best that I could given my limitations, but when in doubt, I shouldn’t be too hard on myself because Star Wars exists. In fact, knowing that Star Wars exists relieves a bit of the anxiety and pressure off of having an entirely accurate physically possible world. I still want room for creative freedom, after all.

  • Inspiration in No Kings

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    My quilted flag with scrap materials.

    Happy No Kings Day!

    If you live in the United States, you know the chaos and turmoil our current administration is putting the world through (war, public executions, concentration camps, lack of due process, funding for genocides, voter suppression, and eradication of intellectualism just to name a few). Things are looking quite familiar.

    It’s quite the mental exercise to keep writing and creating art during times such as these, but it is important that the arts remain one of many focal points in maintaining free expression. George Orwell, Karl Marx, Octavia Butler, and a whole host of others wrote deeply about the profound effects of authoritarian movements, erosion of public trust, and class division, and it is important that we find the parallels between their observations and today’s climate.

    Authoritarian leadership (when power is concentrated in the hands of the few) is corrosive to democracy and I find it ironic that individuals who love to spitfire the importance of free speech and freedom are perfectly fine with having their own freedoms stripped away by an old fool of a man who says “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap,” and the crowd around him claps.

    This reality heavily inspired my decision to change the trajectory of my novel. I originally went the typical fantasy route of putting monarchs and nobility front and center. Then, I I thought, what if we stopped writing books about authoritarian emperors and kings and wrote about authoritarian politicians and unsavory businessmen? What if the evils are Artificial Intelligence, Monopolies, and Deregulation? What if the threats are about humans losing their dignity and autonomy? What if the degeneration of morality is a country where profits are favored over real human lives?

    I don’t have enough space in my book to take every little detail of our political landscape and thrust it into my story, but I do have a backlog of ideas. There’s always something that happens here and writers are often told to write what they know. Write what they see. Write what they experience. Right now, I am experiencing anger because as human beings we can do better than what we have been doing. We do not have to accept abuse, distortion, murder, and dehumanization as the norm.

    Take care today and create art. Join a cause. Be someone’s friend.

  • Sexy Leaves Have Arrived

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    I get tingles when I see the first scarlet leaves in the trees. It has been challenging making room for outdoor walks (work has been a whirlwind), however, I plan to get some good steps in before October ends and the trees become bald.

    I began walking and writing together some time ago. Last summer, I made it a requirement to walk often. It is meant to bring me out of the loop of algorithms and technology and reset my motivation and attention span.

    The results have been golden.

    The drive to keep writing, no matter how stuck I am, has remained, and the woods are forgiving friends when one needs a non-judgmental space to be a writing madwoman.

    One fall day. I am super proud of my knit beanie. The pattern is called Halloween Beanie by Noemi Zimmer from Ravelry.

    I even have a favorite spot where I can look out onto the lake. I have to go off the path of one of my favorite trails, but it isn’t too far and it is secluded enough for me to hear only the jumping fish, drifting turtles, cardinals, and mourning doves.

    I can sit (ignore the ants on my butt) and welcome the privilege that is writing by hand. It took some getting used to, but eventually I began to notice that I was choosing words carefully, thinking through my rhythms in a way that typing cannot. Typing only ripples past these rhythms.

    It helps to get out of the house and touch the grass, oaks, and lake water. The classical legends such as Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf were walkers. Haruki Murakami is also a walker. I am itching to get out there again to see what magic nature will bring.

  • Why I Can’t Be a Pantser

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    A Pantser is a writer who goes with the flow and writes without a clear direction, outline, or process. It is a lofty strategy meant to remove boundaries and welcome artistic freedom.

    The first novel I ever wrote was a “Pantser Novel.” I wrote, letting the ideas frolic away until I had a 350 or so paged book. One day, I’m going to prepare for the cringe and re-read it. However, not once have I been able to write that way again.

    My first book is definitely filled with problems: ideas that did not age well, abusive romance, a wacky third-person omniscient narrative, and probably every overused fantasy and anime trope. What did I expect? I began the book when I was twelve or thirteen and finished it when I was sixteen. I don’t ever plan on publishing it.

    Now that I’m older, wiser, and feel like I know nothing, I learned that the reason for my decades long writer’s block had more to do with a lack of structure than a lack of ideas. It’s easy to start a story with no direction. It’s near impossible to write a middle and an end with no direction. And so, I’ve collected dozens of unfinished Word documents with writing I found rather lovely, but sadly with no focus. There were characters wandering around, trying to discover vague enemies in a world with too much useless detail.

    I can’t be a Pantser anymore because I’ll be tempted to put everything I’ve ever imagined into a book, then be paralyzed by the over ambitious attempt.

    A New Flow…

    Letting my story flow and learning as I write is still part of the process. That said, I still need the skeleton that holds the body together. This isn’t to say that my book has been perfectly and completely architected. However, I do have my ending thought out, and a rough sketch on how to get there. Plot structures are a godsend.

    The Tale Tinkerer on YouTube has a helpful video about how being a pantser can be troubling for many fantasy writers. In his video The Pantser Myth Destroys Fantast Writing, he expresses how pantsing can stall fantasy stories because there is no “blueprint…to complete the work.”

    This is not to say that every fine detail needs to be fleshed out before one begins writing, but it is to say that a map-less adventure might lead one off a cliff! All of my stories ran me off a cliff.

    Combining Save the Cat and The Hero’s Journey

    For my story Eclipse, I am using a combination of blueprints to assemble my plot structure: Save the Cat and The Hero’s Journey.

    Save The Cat involves a more complicated “Three-Act” structure in which the story begins with an opening image, theme, set-up, catalyst, and a debate before the hero must make a choice and enter their new normal. By the midpoint of the story, the antagonists close in and all hope is lost. By the resolution, there is a reconning between the hero and his or her goal, an epiphany, then a finale.

    The Hero’s Journey describes the hero leaving their typical life after being called to an adventure. They are then initiated into an unfamiliar world and must face trials and tribulations as well as encounters with mentors, friends, and antagonists. The story is resolved when the hero triumphs (or not) and returns home with a new philosophy on life.

    How These Plot Structures Work in Eclipse

    The overarching theme or question I am working with in Eclipse is “How do we maintain our humanity in a world constantly working to take it away from us?”

    Each of my characters is wrestling with holding on to what makes them human in three important ways: dignity in health, dignity in community, and dignity in purpose. How do our current social systems pull each of these away one by one? How do we revolt to gain dignity back?

    My heroes journeys, I hope, reflect these questions in the plot structure. This is the clearest I’ve ever written them to be, for each of them struggle with these three concepts.

    I had way more I wanted to talk about before narrowing down my book to just these three ideas. Having a structure helped to keep my brain focused on the meat and potatoes of the plot, and not run my story off a cliff and into another unfinished heap.

    The Hero’s Journey structure is the most prevalent in my planning process. It is structured enough to provide a solid skeleton or foundation for my story, but also flexible enough for me to make sudden changes that might be necessary for the plot to work. Save the Cat can be a bit limiting, and I found myself combining plot points to make my story smoother.

    Since exploring with these plot structures, I now find it easier to develop a solid plot. Time to continue the hard work.

  • 3 Star Ratings Aren’t Bad: A Ramble About Book Ratings

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    Just to get this sentiment out of the way, everyone is entitled to their opinion and taste in books. We can’t all be the same, and neither should we be.

    That said, I was on Goodreads the other day and I couldn’t help but notice a staggering number of books I’ve loved receive 2 or 3 stars, or just barely graze 4 stars. Some books that lack a cohesive plot, comprehensive characters, and horrid pacing receive 5 stars with an emphasis that they would be given more if the rating system allowed it.

    Obviously, my humble opinion in a tiny corner of the internet is not a great barometer for measuring what sells and what does not (especially since I am an unpublished writer), but I am not the only reader out there noticing the degrading quality of stories. Much of the language appears monolithic (lacks variety), almost like the corporate-speak expected in blogs and articles so that it will be detected by Search Engine Optimization.

    As an aspiring fantasy writer and a fantasy reader, I can’t help but notice the constant barrage of modern squabbling language thrown into medieval or fantasy worlds, recycled romance tropes, throwing every mythological creature and Lord of the Rings race in sight into the world, and/or battle-royales within school settings. I was once excited to dive into Goodreads for some good fantasy after reading mostly literary fiction the past year. The onslaught of rabid 5-star ratings convinced me that I would have an amazing time with today’s fantasy stories. Boy, was I heartbroken.

    Can we please bring back 3-star ratings for stories?

    My Adventures with Romantasy and the 5-Star problem

    As an example of my disappointment, after reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, Quicksilver by Callie Hart, and Silver Elite by Dani Francis, I am struggling to understand the appeal of these stories when the main characters do incredibly idiotic things just to move the plot along, and the world-building seems so chaotic. For the record, I do commend these authors for their success, and it is wonderful that these stories have profoundly touched readers; I hope these authors continue to hone their craft. I also envy how quickly they can turn out books and I look up to their incredible holding power and marketing. I aspire to that sort of success for my own work one day.

    I mainly wish that the ratings reflected truly powerful prose, introspective characters, and thoughtful themes.

    ***Minor Spoilers Ahead***

    Violet of Fourth Wing is supposed to be incredibly intelligent and a weak fighter…, yet she often makes decisions that put herself and other people in danger. She also fights with daggers—which is a horrible choice for a supposedly physically weak and petite woman who needs to overpower an attacker (a polearm or sword would be the better choice).

    Saeris from Quicksilver is supposed to be street smart, and she quickly allows herself to get tricked into a servitude spell because she missed the not-so-fine print (it was glarying) about having to fully comply with orders in exchange for rescuing her brother.

    Wren from Silver Elite is the worst. She is supposed to hate the authoritarian government and military oppressing her, and in the first chapter she sleeps with a soldier from that faction. On top of that, she clearly cares more about “hot guys” than her uncle who was executed by these same authoritarians because she almost never mentions him again.

    ***End of Spoilers***

    If you are a fan of these stories, that is fine; I myself have my guilty reading pleasures. My argument is not that these “okay” or “bad” books should stop getting published. Instead, I believe we should bring back harsher, nuanced, criticism and honest reflections on these stories and their characters. I would give these popular romantasy stories 3-stars—except for Silver Elite. Silver Elite is easily 1-star for the most air-headed protagonist of all time. She’s an unreliable narrator to the max, boasting skill and ferocity without the evidence to back it up. She has two brain cells fighting for third place.

    Bring Back 3-Star Ratings!

    3-Star Ratings aren’t inherently bad. They recognize that a book possesses all of the components of a structured story: a clear plot, standard characters, and a theme. Perhaps they merely leave the reader wanting more, or the message was unremarkable. Perhaps the rhetoric or prose was too plain or predictable. None of these traits, however, make it a bad story.

    5-Star Ratings should be given to outstanding stories—stories with careful, beautifully written prose, thought-provoking themes, and words that leave impressions on the minds of readers. Granted, gauging what constitutes these characteristics is challenging since personal taste is also valid. I would love if stories did not insult the reader with obvious inconsistencies.

    I hope that if or when my own stories come out that I get roasted as well. Tell me when my plots don’t make sense. Tell me when my characters do unreasonalby idiotic things.

  • Liking a Villain More than the Hero

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    I have a concern.

    Why do we seem to like villains more than heroes?

    I once taught a medica literacy lesson about Frank Abagnale, the infamous felon who impersonated an airline pilot, lawyer, and doctor, while also engaging in countless cases of cheque fraud. Although there are definitely worse felons, I am still amazed at how much my students admired his escapades and how they viewed Abagnale’s girlfriend or the people he cheated as the villains.

    Although villains make for fascinating case studies of human psychology in media, I wished we would like heroes more. Is it a moral failing of our society that we tend to side with the perpetrators? Or, is a functional society too boring and we require endless simulation to keep us engaged with life? Perhaps heroes seem “boring” because they are “too perfect.” Admitedly, Superman was never my favorite superhero. But, I do quite enjoy Batman.

    I can roll several villains off my tongue that I enjoy more than the hero: practically every antagonist in a horror movie: Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Antinous in The Odyssey, and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. I do generally like Joker, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy, more than Batman… but I enjoy them all as excellent and interesting characters—not as models of citizenship.

    But, I find myself wishing that there were more likeable heroes. I want to see a character that has the insanity of The Joker, but instead of murdering, he saves lives. I want to see a femme fatale, like Catwoman, who seduces a villain into ruin.

    It’s something I hope I can be successful with in my own stories. How do I get righteousness to appear sexy without the “perfect hero” that does no wrong and girl-bosses and guy-bosses their way out of everything? Perhaps the way is to write heroes who have to make challenging and difficult decisions—violent or not— while remaining true to their convictions.

  • Happy Fall Equinox

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    Happy Fall Equinox!

    I can’t express how ecstatic I am for fall.

    Autumn is a precious time for me because it is a season of contemplation, goal setting, and resetting. Even though it’s the busiest season for me, it’s also lively with precious colors, hearty food, and crisp, comfortable weather. Despite some personal challenges, my worries and concerns for the goings-on in my life will continue to be labeled as distractions keeping me away from my ultimate goals and purposes. In this case, it is writing.

    Autumn is my ultimate Memento Mori, reminding me that death is an essential life experience, but that in the colors it grants, comes opportunity for reflecting on the finite time we have in the world. There is no room for persistent negativity. This time is better spent changing the dynamics around us: be more understanding; be more empathetic; be more courageous; be more giving; be more artistic. It is okay to be melancholy and angry at the world, but it is also important to shift one’s mindset into action and become the positive change one wants to see. If terrible relationships are what one sees, be the spectacular friend, lover, and family member. If destruction of the wilds is what one sees, be the steward of the wealds.

    I recently had a disheartening encounter with a close family member who enjoys belittling others (he made unsolicited insults about a bridesmaid at a wedding we went to—which were indirectly insulting to me as well), and after thoroughly defending the integrity of this perfectly wonderful young lady, it had me think about how unpleasant it must be to live in a mind of shallowness and persistent negativity. Life is definitely too short to be speculating horrid (and wrong) things about people one knows nothing about.

    He was once an artist—and I say once because he was at one point passionate about music and writing. I’ve grown up and watched him shift from honing his craft to freely giving his mind away to algorithms and Learning Language Models. The transformation of his art and perspectives was terribly stunning as they became soulless shadows. He wonders why he is so uninspired, and why his music and writing has decayed in quality and soul. I can conjecture several reasons, but rotting critical thinking and the refusal to work without artificial prompts are definitely symptoms.

    We should not aspire to live as he does, stewing in hatred and dislike because miserable others told us to. We should not be hypocritical, complaining of others when we are the problem. Autumn is our reminder that such thinking wastes time. We should prefer to create and share and inspire, rather than tear down, break away, and smash.

    This autumn, we must be reminded of the impermanence of time and the importance of thinking for oneself.

    Spend them wisely. Cherish them kindly. Love what is good, learn from what is evil.

    This season, I refuse to let evil paralyze what I can do in the moment. I hope you do as well.