laramie

via Lizbeth Selvig
Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder
A sketch about one of the hazards of getting older. 2004. Director: Steve Pemberton. Visit http://www.ampsvideo.com/film-talk/attention-deficit.htm
(You don't actually have to be very old for this syndrome to affect you.)

via mnartists.org
Should We Let More Artists Starve So Some Can Succeed? | Artinfo
www.artinfo.com
• Why are artists poor? It’s a good question. Just don’t ask Hans Abbing, the Dutch economist and author of “Why Are Artists Poor? The Exceptional Economy of the Arts.”
‎"More artists exist than can possibly make it without a change in the way society consumes visual art, that’s for sure. But the reason for this phenomenon likely has at least as much to do with how *goddamn alienating* non-artistic labor is as with how naïve artists are —"

Beauty by Fotoshop by Adobé
This commercial isn't real, neither are society's standards of beauty. Full post here with behind the scenes: http://jesserosten.com/2012/fotoshop-by-adobe

Plus Size Bodies, What Is Wrong With Them Anyway?
plus-model-mag.com
In the January 2012 issue of PLUS Model Magazine, plus-size model Katya Zharkova is featured in an explosive editorial where thought provoking statistics and statements are revealed. - Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less.

A Poverty Solution That Starts With a Hug
http://nyti.ms/yQKw3E
The American Academy of Pediatrics is warning that a harsh early environment can lay the groundwork for lifelong achievement gaps, health problems and poverty.

Meditation found to increase brain size
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/02/meditation-found-to-increase-brain-size/
People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains.
“Our data suggest that one small bit of brain appears to have a slower rate of cortical thinning, so meditation may help slow some aspects of cognitive aging,”

‘Wild Old Women’ Close San Francisco Bank Of America Branch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg6ayc-w3bE
It was a slow-moving Occupy Wall Street protest, but it was an effective one. A dozen senior citizens calling themselves "the wild old women" succeeded in closing a Bank of America branch in Bernal Heights Thursday.

Finally! Some pictures of the first batch of slim-line book garters. These have mostly been given out as presents over the holidays, but I thought you might enjoy seeing them.



Close ups! (if you click the thumbnail image).

Elven Queen Seed	Eternity Song	Flutter Stone
Guardian Angel, the Backup Plan	Happy Kitty, Pretty Kitty / Purr, Purr, Purr	By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Here are some of the links I've posted recently on FaceBook:

A holiday Greeting for my atheist friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=98dp_-o6QpU

Some incredible and eye-opening street art from the past year:


An ethereal version of P.Tchaikovsky's 'Sugar Plum Fairy' performed on glass harmonica:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdoTdG_VNV4

and Darth Vader conducts Christmas Choir Flash Mob - Carol of the Bells
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiDTufRNL10&feature=endscreen&NR=1

An editor who read the partial of my novella, 'Sweet Mercy' has requested the full manuscript!

Naomi Kritzer posted about Project Homeless Connect "a twice-yearly event (in Hennepin County; it's once a year in Ramsey, IIRC) in which the county tries to bring as many service providers to the Minneapolis Convention Center as possible." I went down to the Convention Center to check out the event. I'm not homeless (thank heavens!) but I am behind on rent, which makes the prospect seem all too possible. Full account here:
http://skylarker.livejournal.com/818946.html

The latest batch of recycled milk jug bookblades: Help support a local artisan by taking advantage of bargain prices for these wonderful holiday gifts suited for readers of all sorts.

Free shipping! Small ones: $1.50, 3 for $4.00
Medium and Large: $2 apiece, 3 for $5.00


The images appear on both sides of the blade.

( Close ups below the cut )

Supplies are limited!

This morning, anticipating a meeting with my critique partners to discuss the latest draft of a novella I've been working on, I found myself wondering why I find it easier to write short than long. I've had a handful (four) short stories published in paying markets, and the writing of them went relatively smoothly and painlessly, while writing my novels has required years and seemingly endless revisions.

With a short story or novella I can see the shape of the story more easily. The story's overall structure and its relation to the interior scenes and details that contribute to said structure all seem more readily apparent to me with a short story. I can see the tree, its limbs and leaves as a whole thing.

With a novel, it's more like looking at a forest, but then having to continually change focus and perspective to assess the relationship of the forest to the trees. Individual scenes and chapters need to work at their own level while furthering the overall story. It's too easy to get caught up at the level of the scene and lose track of how it contributes to the story, or too easy to pull back, trying to get a sense of how it all fits together and fail to appreciate the vital details that make reading the story an engaging experience.

The mistake is in wanting to stay too long at either focal range. Telling the story requires a continual shifting of perspective between the immediate and the overall, between the forest and the trees. As a visual artist I look continually between the overall impact of a drawing, the dynamics of how elements relate to the page, and the detailed rendering of those elements. What is the arc of that curve of a chin, and how does it fit with the shape of the head in relation to the bounding box of the page? In telling a story there's a similar need to consider how each detail, each scrap of dialog and description contributes to the overall shape and impact of the story. The task is more complex in a novel, but just as vital in a short story. As an artist, I tend to see that overall structure as maplike, something seen from above and at a distance, but as a writer, I need to reveal the overall shape of the forest through immersion, leading the reader over the topography to feel the character of it from within.

And this need to consider such interrelationships extends to the level of sentences. I often find myself wanting to say too much all at once. I want the tree to convey the forest. I want the reader to know my characters from the get go, with their back-stories and motivations all laid out up front. It's a challenge to hold back and let the story unfold, revealing the hidden glades and sudden morasses only as we go along. Sometimes I want a single sentence to do the work of a paragraph, and so create huge convoluted passages as entangled as any bramble patch. But this doesn't tangle up my characters so much as my readers.

The story is a path through the forest, and I'm a guide. It's my job to lead the expedition through the wilderness, pointing out the most striking trees, useful herbs and edible berries, points of scenic wonder or danger. Here the trees are scenes with characters involved in action and dialog, arranged to provoke interest about what will come next. I'm responsible for keeping to a path my readers can follow, not losing them in swamps of pointless monolog or entangling them in briars of overly tangled prose. I must choose a path for the interesting points along its route, without calling attention to the path itself by leaving roots or pitfalls to trip up my travelers.

At this point I might discussing various kinds of paths, whether they be foot-tracks or highways, and whether the routes might lie through jungles, forests, gardens or cities, but all that is up to an individual writer and the variety of choices makes for a more interesting world of books.

This is the text of the article just published in the Midwest Muse. Sorry, I don't know how to do cut tags on Dreamwidth.

What's the Buzz?
It’s all those ‘was’es. I’ve acquired an annoying affliction lately – a sensitivity to the word ‘was’ and its other forms: were, will, wasn’t, etc. These are such useful and prevalent forms of speech that at first I never noticed how much I over used them, or how static an impression they create in prose. In a 90,000 word novel I found 1,429 ‘was’es. That’s more than one in every 90 words, more than 1% of the entire novel consisting of static statements of being.

Consider the phrase, “her hair was dark.” The hair exists, it possesses a quality, darkness. It does nothing. No action takes place, no events transpire. Ordinarily, I’d say, so what? But story-telling is all about the events: what happens, then what happens next.

Consider some alternatives:
1) Her dark hair fell across her brow as she leaned forward.
2) Her dark hair tangled in the rising wind blowing in across the desert.
3) He dug his fingers into the dark mass of her hair, so like the storm clouds gathering above them.

In examples 1 and 2 the hair moves, it acts, it earns its right to the role of subject of its sentence. In example 1 the hair’s action is part of a character’s action, drawing us into that action. In example 2 the hair interacts with the wind and helps to establish setting and mood. In example 3 the hair has become the object of action on the part of another character, and that action helps build the relationship between the characters while also helping to establish setting and mood. This is a sentence working its verbs to really earn its place in the text.

My affliction has gotten so bad that I can hardly read a published novel any more without re-writing the ‘was’es as I go along. And many a published and well reviewed novel can be rife with them.

For instance, here’s what I’d do with the following sentences:
In the first week of October the weather *was* a glorious combustion of blue skies and bright sunlight, and her city *was* in its party best.

This becomes: “In the first week of October the weather exploded in a glorious combustion of blue skies and bright sunlight, and her city donned its party best.” This glorious weather doesn’t just exist, it explodes. The city isn’t passive background, but an active part of the narrative.

There *were* corner parks everywhere, and stands of pine and birch outside the Government Center in the very heart of downtown.

This becomes: “Corner parks prevailed, burgeoning everywhere; stands of pine and birch stood even outside the Government Center in the very heart of downtown.” The parks are active, growing elements of the city. ‘Prevailing’ suggests success against opposition, that the parks act as a true force of nature, pervasive in the setting of the city.

Bahram’s Nahid *was* a city of baked mud brick. Its walls *were* glazed in bright colors to depict gryphons rampant, lions, and horses and men at arms with their beards and hair tightly curled.

This becomes: “His people built Bahram’s city of Nahid from baked mud bricks. For the walls, they glazed bricks in bright colors to depict gryphons rampant, lions, and horses and men at arms with their beards and hair tightly curled.” The city doesn’t simply exist; the actions of men have created it; both men and city belong to the character Bahram. Men created the city and glazed the bricks of its walls with meaningful images, telling the reader much about the characters of men and setting alike.

There *was* no crime that went undetected, but there *was* little crime where there *was* no desperation.

This becomes: “No crime went undetected, but who would commit crimes where no one knew the gnawing spur of desperation?” The existence of crime is taken out of the abstract and related clearly to the living conditions of the city’s people.

These rewrites are small, subtle, but they succeed in reducing the buzz of ‘was’es from more than a handful to none at all, leaving nothing to drag my attention from the story, and in every case making the story richer and more active.

Heat and humidity tend to sap my energy to the point where I feel very accomplished for having done anything at all. I’m pleased to have submitted the first twenty-five pages of 'Spirited!' to a chapter contest with a specific category for Light Paranormal' and to have made some progress on revisions to 'Sweet Mercy' this week.

In the meanwhile, I've been keeping up with the day job, commuting an hour each way by bus, through rain or awful heat and humidity.

I have not done much toward researching markets for how-to craft articles, but have taken a few minor steps on bookmark projects.

And the Midwest Muse printed a short article of mine detailing some of the fine points I’ve been addressing in my revisions. I intend to post it on LJ and FB (Creative Commons license), but don’t have access to it from work.

I did a few small things:
Returned book to library, picked up 'The Wise Man's Fear.'
Made expedition to Trader Joe’s for nuts and berries
Made expedition to Aldi’s for other groceries
I’ve read 90% of ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ – over 600 pages so far.

Goals:
Complete this round of revisions to ‘Sweet Mercy’ – send to CPs
Keep up with day job, daily & weekly chores
Make inquiries about tax problem and dental appointments
Whatever else I can manage in the heat.

I just logged into my DreamWidth account for the first time in 2010, to find that it hasn't been mirroring my LJ posts for a long time now. Uh. Dang. This sounds like work.