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Inspiration and Craft

7/24/2016

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I won't apologize for not adding to this blog sooner, but I will explain.  My wife's health has taken another turn for the worse and a lot of time ordinarily used for writing has been put to other uses as a result of those health problems.
 
My fantasy novel, Witchery,  will be published about the first of November by Double Dragon Publishing.   T.S. Eliot said "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."  When I wrote this novel I was aware that I was borrowing concepts from Robert Heinlein's short story, "Magic, Inc.", and an idea he put forward in Glory Road that had little to do with the main story. I also was aware of an influence from Marvel's Doctor Strange comic books, even though I didn't read many of them.
Of course I also borrowed from Lord of the Rings, Conan, and Le Morte D'Arthur.  And some stuff I made up on my own...I think.
However, none of those borrowings inspired the story or characters in the first place.  That was my own doing though I didn't know it at the time.
When I was teaching high school English I often gave my students writing assignments and sometimes, because I like to write, I would do the assignment myself.  My poem, "Bug War", was the result of one such effort.  
In this case I assigned the students the task of describing someone in a setting. Describe the person and the place and conditions that person is in.
I did the assignment myself. I described a young and very pretty red-headed woman on a black horse riding a path through a forest in late evening. I described her clothing, and the blue-stoned ring she wore. I wrote the details of the late autumn forest with its leafless trees. I detailed the size of the horse and the saddle.
And then I filed it away. About a year later that image of the young woman gave me an idea. She had, from the very beginning, in my mind, been a witch. Why was she there? Where was she going? From those questions I developed the entire story that will finally see print this Fall.
The biggest problem I had with the original construction was that I wanted to start the story there. Eventually I came to realize that I could not. There had to be something presented before that would justify her presence at that place and time. That was the most frustrating part of the story—exactly how to begin.  I tried at least a half dozen different beginnings before I settled on the one that will see print. And even then, the details of the beginning were changed and rewritten more than once.
Finally, though, I had a finished novel that I could submit (by snail mail, please include envelope and postage for return if rejected) to publishers.
Rejections followed.
I got the message. Something needed changing. After a fresh look I decided that details of the magic—what it could do and how—needed to be reworked and redefined and limited. But various things of non-writing origin interfered and the novel sat unmodified for several years.
When I at last determined to get to the rewrite I knew what I wanted. The basic plot and characters were just fine; only details concerning the magic needed to be changed. But as I rewrote it from the very beginning I added details about the characters, introduced additional minor characters and additional minor conflicts.
The basic characters all stayed the same, except that I changed the gender of one of them.  When I got to the second half I brought the fate of one secondary character to a much more satisfactory continuation. In the original he had simply been left behind. Then I added over a dozen secondary and tertiary characters to bring more life into the conflicts and more drama—more pathos.
The finished draft was more complete and much richer than the draft of years earlier. Then I applied editing software to the manuscript, chapter by chapter. That made the language of the story stronger and the story telling more enthralling.
But through all that the four primary human characters did not change although they did grow during the story. The plot changed not one bit. Details were added or subtracted to various battle scenes (in some cases because of the reworking of the principles of magic) but the plot and the motivations of the characters were the same as in the first draft. The ending was virtually unchanged.
That is what goes into a finished novel. It is art and creativity, but it is also at least as much a craft. Painters and sculptors cannot get by on simple inspiration. They must apply the colors just right. The lines and curves and angles must be just so. The sculpture must have every imperfection eliminated and every surface exactly as smooth or rough as the artist's vision dictates. The same is true for writers. We use words instead of paint or chisel, but the discipline and skill to use those tools is just as exacting.
I hope all of you that enjoy reading fantasy—or those of you that don't know if you like it because you haven't tried it—will read Witchery when it becomes available.
And thank you.  

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A Birthday Wish

7/5/2016

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Happy Birthday to the United States of America.
I've posted something shorter and similar on Facebook regarding what comes next, but I'm going to go into more detail here and maybe ramble a bit.
Forget the "maybe."
Miracles often happen and aren't recognized as such until long after.  And by then they can be explained away with logical reasoning .
You don't believe in miracles?  You don't believe in a higher power?  If you look closely at the incredible idiocy, cruelty, and degradations performed by human beings, the idea that we are the ultimate intelligence and power in this section of the galactic woods is too discouraging to bear.
So much for the ramble.
Two hundred forty years ago, plus a few years before and after, there was a miracle.  Some of the most intelligent men to ever live—ever—happened to be in the same place at the same time and of a like mind.  Franklin and Jefferson, as men well versed in science and writing and the composers of the Declaration of Independence might be said to lead that assemblage, but John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Paine, James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton and many others were part of that group.  These were all brilliant men who—and this is the miraculous part—felt the same way about the political conditions they were living under.
For those of you that find yourselves assaulted by political rhetoric at all times right now, let me add one brief observation in that vein: All of these men were raving liberals...or, if you prefer the term, progressives.  All four men (two of them already mentioned) on Mount Rushmore were, again, extreme liberals (progressives).  Take that, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin.
The NRA and these millions of conservatives base their principles on the foundation built by liberals, and they spend half their energy condemning liberals and liberalism.
I love irony.  
For those of you that might wish to read a little bit about those great men that you didn't know, I offer these links:
http://www.imom.com/9-stories-about-our-founding-fathers-you-may-not-know/#.V3sRwjW-13Q
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/founding-fathers-and-women-not-their-wives-whom-they-wrote-180954278/?no-ist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States
 
Happy Birthday to US

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    I'm a former teacher and current warehouse grunt that loves writing.

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