Nap time revelations
Before coming into work tonight, I took a rather involuntary nap, one of those half-hour jobs that are oddly refreshing. It was a little weird because I kept mentally writing a story while I was doing it. I don't even remember dreams usually, so it seemed odd to me. I remember some of what I "wrote" and I certainly remember thinking about how strange it was that I was doing it. I'm not complaining. It seemed like a pretty good use of my time, sleeping and plotting at the same time. :)
I started reading a book tonight called "Love in the Time of Cholera," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm about 25 pages in and I can already tell it'll be good, even without my wife's glowing review of the book. The funny thing about it is that I'm reading it as I struggle through a part of an original story of mine. I like to look at a website called Turkey City Lexicon (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html for those curious... I do recommend it to writers, but don't cry as you notice that you break their rules). It's chock full of good advice of things to steer clear of, especially in the realm of science fiction, though it'll work for anything. There's one section called "infodump", which is basically putting a bunch of background into in a story to give it a universe of it's own. The authors of the web page describe the bad way of doing this, which is essential a lecture by the author in the middle of the action. I was worried (and still am a little) that I was doing just that in my story. But now, after starting to read this book, I wonder if I am. Garcia Marquez, in just 25 pages, does that a lot to establish his universe and his characters, but he does it so seemlessly that I'm not sure I would have seen it for what it was if I wasn't dealing with it myself. I will need to go back and take a look at it again in the next few days and see, but minus a few tweaks (which I needed anyway to establish the main character for what she is), I'm thinking it might be okay.
Randomly changing gears, I might go see "Sin City" this weekend. Don't know for sure yet, since my work schedule is messed up this weekend, but if I do I'll try to post some thoughts. A random line from the commercials from the movie keeps going through my head: Clive Owen saying "I need a car... with a big trunk." It cracks me up for some reason. The other random line currently on repeat is from The Chapelle Show: "White people love Wayne Brady because he makes Bryant Gumble look like Malcolm X." I love that episode. Wayne Brady is hysterical in it.
I'm out!
I started reading a book tonight called "Love in the Time of Cholera," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm about 25 pages in and I can already tell it'll be good, even without my wife's glowing review of the book. The funny thing about it is that I'm reading it as I struggle through a part of an original story of mine. I like to look at a website called Turkey City Lexicon (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html for those curious... I do recommend it to writers, but don't cry as you notice that you break their rules). It's chock full of good advice of things to steer clear of, especially in the realm of science fiction, though it'll work for anything. There's one section called "infodump", which is basically putting a bunch of background into in a story to give it a universe of it's own. The authors of the web page describe the bad way of doing this, which is essential a lecture by the author in the middle of the action. I was worried (and still am a little) that I was doing just that in my story. But now, after starting to read this book, I wonder if I am. Garcia Marquez, in just 25 pages, does that a lot to establish his universe and his characters, but he does it so seemlessly that I'm not sure I would have seen it for what it was if I wasn't dealing with it myself. I will need to go back and take a look at it again in the next few days and see, but minus a few tweaks (which I needed anyway to establish the main character for what she is), I'm thinking it might be okay.
Randomly changing gears, I might go see "Sin City" this weekend. Don't know for sure yet, since my work schedule is messed up this weekend, but if I do I'll try to post some thoughts. A random line from the commercials from the movie keeps going through my head: Clive Owen saying "I need a car... with a big trunk." It cracks me up for some reason. The other random line currently on repeat is from The Chapelle Show: "White people love Wayne Brady because he makes Bryant Gumble look like Malcolm X." I love that episode. Wayne Brady is hysterical in it.
I'm out!