megwrites

1. Hello f-list. I am alive and all. Right now, if anyone wanted to be sort of writing buddies, I'd really love that. What I mean by writing buddies is that it would be nice if I could send some sample pages from a few things I'm working on to some people and ask "is this crap? does anything work?" and maybe toss around some ideas in my head and have someone poke holes or tell me if I'm doing the same thing EVERY writer in the genre has done since 1975 or something. Especially those who read this genre and are willing to be really brutally honest.

I am OF COURSE willing to reciprocate fully, and even willing to read long or full drafts of short stories, novellas, novels, etc. Seriously.

I'm sort of looking to establish a relationship of "we can pick apart each other's stuff and be friends and maybe even be friends outside of writing". If that makes sense and doesn't sound terribly pathetic.

I know I had beta readers for other novels, but I feel bad calling on them again. Especially since they read an entire book to help me out. That's a lot of pages.

So, drop a message, comment, anything.

2. Mental health is adjusting still since I'm on Lexapro now. It's not been long enough to know if this is The One or not. Also: I may need to talk to mental health person about maybe an ongoing anti-anxiety med rather than just an anti-depressant. For reasons.

3. Re: my last post (which was like two weeks ago). I have no issue with fanfic becoming original fic. I just have issue when the fic in question isn't the good stuff. I come from fandom, and I can tell you that fandom has some really lovely literature to offer. Especially since fandom can be where fans really take their source material and twist it into lots of unexpected shapes and fill in the giant holes and talk about the issues with the original material.

If we had to do a Twilight-based fic-to-original novel, why couldn't be one of the ones where we make Bella the vampire who stalks high school loner Edward or one of the ones where we queer the fuck out of everything and see how it works when they're not all white folks. Or where the writer doesn't utterly fail when it comes to the Quileute people (a whole novel about the Quileute people, even!)

Anyway, we'll talk no more about it, unless anyone feels a driving need to.

4. Anyone have links on how fountain pen converters work or what they are and when/if you need them? I still want to get a fountain pen (maybe I'll ask for one for X-mas this year) but I'd like to know more. Though, I will say my $3.50 little disposable Varsity pen has done okayish. It skips sometimes and if you have the wrong kind of paper it feathers like a shedding goose, but otherwise, not bad.

4. SEE HOW GOOD I AM AT MATH! This is probably why the teller jobs I applied for aren't calling me back. Also, if you ever want to apply to be a bank teller, set aside like FIFTEEN HOURS IN YOUR DAY and get a really good calculator. I did that last week and that shit was like a freaking math test where you have not only do math real good, but try to sell people financial services. In retrospect, it's probably mutually beneficial that I didn't get a callback.

As expected, the going is still slow on the novel and progress has slowed to a crawl, because I'm just not concentrating that much on it. But it's my vacation and it's nearly Thanksgiving, and I don't feel guilty.

But I did do some thinking about my project and about writing in general on the way back from Massachusetts today. And one of the things I thought about was how writers are so constantly hammered with the old adage, "Show, don't tell". It's practically hammered into our heads by advice givers and fellow workshoppers from the moment we decide we have the temerity to both write and share that writing with others.

And a lot of things have bothered me about that little piece of wisdom, especially since writers are, ideally, storytellers.

Then it hit me that it's not so much that you should always show and never tell, but that there's a ratio of showing to telling in every story that either does or doesn't make the story work.

I think if you show and never tell, you end up with a really tedious story that describes in nauseating detail every little thing a character does. It's like trying to view a picture on a computer going pixel by pixel It doesn't work. You end up with what the people over at Flogging the Quill like to call "overwriting".

However, if you do nothing but tell, and never show, you end up with an overglorified outline.

So you need a balance. Some things merit showing, just as somethings in a movie warrant the camera zooming in. Some things, however, barely deserve mentioning. Opening doors, crossing the street, brushing teeth, getting dressed - you're better off just telling me that they happened and moving along to the interesting things like dragons and aliens and the plot.

The ratio, however, and what kind of telling and showing are sort of what learning to write is about. I don't know what they should be, but I know that different stories need different ratios. Some stories are all in the details, even the minor ones. Some stories are about broad strokes.

I hope I'm getting the right mix of showing and telling in what I'm doing now, and I definitely hope that readers (if any ever see this particular project) agree. But I suppose that's the point. To learn to get an intuitive sense of the balance of show and tell and make it work together, like rhythm and melody in a song.

Okay, enough of the metaphors. I got tacos waiting on me and a chapter to finish up. Library books have to be stolen and people have to be beat up and marriages have to be imperiled!