March 31st, 2010

Workshop #5: Writing about the senses

Something weird has been happening to me–my senses are getting sharper! Not vision, unfortunately; a few days ago, I took my contacts out and then mistook an empty toilet-paper roll lying on the floor for a mouse (and what was it doing on the floor, we wonder). But hearing and smelling, yeah, it’s getting intense! Does this happen regularly to women in their thirties? It’s sort of an unlooked-for, and in someways unhelpful, bonus. I had a near meltdown at a meeting because someone was twisting her pen barrel against the nib, and the rubbing made a very high-pitched squeaking noise. Apparently no one but me could hear it, but I eventually had to halt the meeting and request that the pen be quarentined, lest my brain explode. I’m sure all neighbouring dogs were very grateful. And I swear I can smell supper cooking in every house I pass at a certain hour, and you wouldn’t believe the number of people in this city who get on the bus smelling of pot. I also uttered the words, “You bought a new brand of deoderant!” in an accusing voice, which is really something that, if you told me ten years ago I would be doing, I would have been profoundly shocked (and still sort of am).

Wow, everything I post has to have this big long personal preamble–sorry! What I’m getting at is, now is a good time to be doing the workshop I’m doing tomorrow, which is writing about sensory perceptions. I marked the first batch of assignments this week, and I can see that, as per usual, it’s the visual that reigns supreme. Not unusual, even with mature writers, but I really do want them to broaden out. I’m going to be doing the same exercises as last year, which involve giving them a specific sensory stimuli, and one that lacks obvious references (unlike say, the scent of roses or the taste of honey, there are few obvious cliches about the flavour of Bubblemint gum or the sound of Leonard Cohen’s voice) and inviting them to write about.

I think those exercises are useful for any writer to do at any age (and prettymuch always listening to Leonard Cohen is helpful) but the lesson I’m going to do beforehand is probably of less use to adults–a bit too elementary. But it’s going to be on to the difference between subjective and objective adjectives.

It’s so hard to remember being a kid and having a really narrow frame of reference and experience, mainly within the family and a group friends that might all have a similar narrow frame. It’s so hard to remember when I thought a word like “beautiful” or “fascinating” or “boring” had a universal, unassailable interpretation. I’m not looking forward to breaking it to the whippersnappers that they can’t say, “ugly wallpaper” and leave it at that, because every reader will have a different interpretation of the word “ugly.” Better to describe the brown and gold flocked velvet wallpaper objectively, and leave it to the readers to conclude for themselves that it is ugly…some might not do so (!) but that’s their perogative–perception is complicated.

I am so sure they are going so say, “But you say ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’ and ‘super’ all the time. Those are totally subjective words.” Fine–so they are. But me talking (or blogging) is supposed to be subjective, or that’s how I justify it. And I’m also available to fill in the reasoning behind my judgements in person (or on the blog–really, just comment) whereas a narrator is not available to the reader beyond the last page of the story–it’s got to be all in the writing. Anyway, that’s what I’m going to tell them, and I hope they buy it, because then I’m going to ban all subjective adjectives.

I’ll let you know how it goes.
RR

March 30th, 2010

Survey says

Well, as usual, y’all are fascinating. I had about 16 people answer these questions, so let us remember that these findings are in no way scientific, especially since some of the answers don’t add up since people gave more than one response (both equally valid if they say them both, says I!) But fascinating, absolutely. I’ll run through the answers and in doing so give you mine–I think then you’ll see why I’m asking these questions in the first place.

1) You have a car, your friend does not, you are both going to the same place, and you would like to be helpful–what do you say to him/her?

13 people offered some variation on “Would you like a ride?” while only 3 mentioned what I usually say, which is “Would you like a lift?” (actually, what I really say is, “Could you give me a lift?” since I don’t have a car). I always felt I’d gotten the lift thing wrong, because what’s common in my little town is “Would you like a drive?” I thought maybe it was a rural thing, but in the survey, the lone respondent who used it was an urban Maritimer, so who knows?

2) What is that piece of terry you use to clean yourself in the shower/bath called? (although if Salinger can’t solve this one, maybe I can’t either)

Washcloth got 10 votes, beating out facecloth, which got only 6. I am thrilled–I am a washclother who thought she was outnumbered, but I was wrong! I am disappointed not to see washrag appearing in the survey at all; my suspicions that JD Salinger made it up are probably sadly justified.

3) What do you call a number of houses all designed, built and sold by the same company, on a set of streets where only such houses exist?

Housing development got 6 votes, subdivision got 8, and cookie-cutter homes got 2. Seriously? I didn’t know about these until I went to high school in the suburbs, where these are everywhere and people call them surveys–I assumed the surbanites know of which they speak and have called them that ever since. Although it didn’t occur to me until right now that that word must have something to do with the work of a surveyor in laying out the land plots. Interesting! Also interesting to hear from August that these sorts of uniform residental/commerical villages don’t exist where he comes from. I thought the concept, if not the term, was universal!

4) You have left something at your place of employment–express this in a sentence.

Landslide: 14 votes for variations on “I left it at work,” only one for “I left it at the office,” and none at all for my hometown locution, “I left it at my work.” No idea where that possessive comes from, but since “at work” isn’t really grammatical either, I’m not willing to disown it.

5) Long thin beans that you can eat in the pod–what are the green ones called? What are the yellow ones called?

The green ones are relatively straightforward–13 votes for green beans,1 for beans, and 1 for snow peas (which is a different vegetable entirely where I come from).

Some confusion here with the yellow ones, including several people who declined to vote because they hadn’t heard of them or simply refused to discuss them. From those who participated, 2 votes for yellow green beans (which RR dislikes), another single vote for beans, 5 votes for yellow beans (fine), and only one other vote for what the Rosenblum family calls them, which is wax beans. I have no idea why we call them that, and the other vote is from a Franco-Manitoban, who says its definitely not a French thing. So really we’re no further along than we were before. But you sort of knew this survey was a waste of time before we started, now, didn’t you? Really.

6) What do you call the nipple-shaped plastic thing you put in a baby’s mouth to stop him or her from crying?

Pacifier (what I call it) got 6 votes, soother got 10 (and I do think this is more common in Canada). There were also a couple votes for family/nonsense variations, which are sweet.

7) What are your geographical origins that might impact your diction?

People answered from all over, which made me happy just because it was interesting for me! Thanks for participating in my reindeer games!

This survery brought up a few bonus questions in the comment section and in conversations. If you aren’t bored with this project yet, feel free to discuss:

1) What do you call the evening meal? The midday meal? Does that ever change? For what reason?

2) What do you call the garment you wear between the shower and getting dressed?

3) What do you knocking on the door then running away (as a joke, not a failure of nerve)?

4) What do you call catching a ride while on roller skates/blades by hanging onto the back of someone’s car/truck?

RR

March 28th, 2010

Whatdyacallit?: survey

Different people often have different names for the same things. Sometimes the reason for this is regional, sometimes I cannot figure it out at all. I am fascinated by this, maybe because I was raised in one region by parents from another, so I kept noticing what people said when it was different from what I said. Anyway, I thought I would survey you, gentle blog readers, on a few things that always stick out to me. Please note that this is no way a studious, well-thought-out survey, nor am I planning on doing anything with the results other than finding them interesting (do you notice how nervous it makes me that an actual professional linguist reads this blog?) Note also, to avoid giving any bias as to how *I* would say things, the questions below are somewhat grammatically weird. And finally, I know I’ve already bugged a few people in blogland about this–it’s one of my pet subjects! Sorry for the repeat, guys.

1) You have a car, your friend does not, you are both going to the same place, and you would like to be helpful–what do you say to him/her?

2) What is that piece of terry you use to clean yourself in the shower/bath called? (although if Salinger can’t solve this one, maybe I can’t either)

3) What do you call a number of houses all designed, built and sold by the same company, on a set of streets where only such houses exist?

4) You have left something at your place of employment–express this in a sentence.

5) Long thin beans that you can eat in the pod–what are the green ones called? What are the yellow ones called?

6) What do you call the nipple-shaped plastic thing you put in a baby’s mouth to stop him or her from crying?

7) What are your geographical origins that might impact your diction? (for example, RR is from Southern Ontario, but her parents are from Brooklyn/Los Angeles, and because of the position of the tv antenna, most of the tv she watched growing up was from Buffalo)

If you feel like answering in the comments, or on your own blog and sending me a link, you will have made a humble nosy girl very happy. I’ll post my answers in a little while, so as not to taint the sample (ha!)

RR

March 26th, 2010

Events: I likes them

Last night was the incomperable Book Madam‘s Sociable at the Pour House, which I attended with Kerry Clare and great joy. It would have been more useful if I’d blogged about this *before* the event happened, but you probably heard about it anyway. I’m a little out of the loop, but judging by the crowd around the bar, this was not an event that suffered from lack of publicity.

More upcoming events of awesomeness:

Wednesday March 31, 7pm–The launch party for the Baracuda anthology, put together of the most outstanding work from last year’s SWAT program. One of my students is in it, and some of this year’s are going to come out and applaud. I’m super-stoked.

Sunday April 18, 3pm–Draft Reading Series re-emerges from its winter hibernation with readings by Michael Bryson, Ian Burgham, Dani Couture, Ellen S. Jaffe and Mark Sampson. Woot!

Monday April 19, 6pm–Launch party for the poetry books by Paul Vermeersch, John Steffler, and Dionne Brand.

Wednesday April 21–Um, I think I’m reading, at the Free Times, as part of the Now Hear This series. Except, when I went to get the link, I got this instead, so now I’m not sure. Maybe someone will tell me soon. Check this space.

RR

March 25th, 2010

Incidents and accidents

1) In class yesterday:

Me, looking over the shoulders of two grade 11 girls as I walk past their desks: Girls, c’mon! I said no phones. (keep walking)

Girl, calling after me: Sorry, miss! We were just–

(I turn to them)

Other girl: Trying to look something up.

(Me internally: Dictionaries live in phones now?)

First girl: Yeah. How do you spell “schizophrenia”?

Me: Oh, well, er– Yeah, fine. Look in your phone.

First girl: Thanks, miss.

Me: You’ve won…

Other girl: Yes, miss.

Me: …this round.

This proves that the reason I refuse to get a cell phone is that I am afraid they are smarter than I am (and I’m probably right, because what I was actually think began with “s-k-” until I realize that was nuts. People think I’m a good speller but I really just own a good [paper] dictionary and sit with it open at my left elbow, which is why I spelled “schizophrenia” correctly above).

2) On the subway, I laughed aloud at something I was reading. What I was reading was Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood, so it’s not so surprising that I laughed, because it is very funny. But it’s a little surprising because I almost never laugh aloud when alone. I don’t know why, but somehow I think laughing is a communicative act, though semi-involuntary. I like funny movies and go to a fair number on my own (for reasons of necessity brought on by [occasionally] having extremely bad taste–I can’t accept that they would bother to make a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine unless that had something important to say about the subject) and I’ll laugh with the audience in happy solidarity, but not really reading and watching tv alone (from what I remember).

Anyway, but then I did, last night, and it caused the drunk guy behind me to say something obscene to or about me. Which is not exactly positive reinforcement to keep doing it.

3) I was walking down the sidewalk this morning and a truck travelling the opposite way made that “ffffffftttttt” sound that I always associate with air brakes although I actually have no idea what it is. But the truck was still moving along at a good clip, and then I noticed that a little jet of steam/smoke shot out under the *front* bumper in time with the noise. I was staring at this in perplexity when I realized the driver was waving at me in a hey-there-old-friend jaunty manner. I definitely don’t know him. There aren’t a lot of pedestrians in that part of town, perhaps he was just offering solace to an endangered species. Or maybe he was just glad I liked his truck?

Does anyone know what the noise and/or steam mean?

RR

March 24th, 2010

Workshop #4: Plot

Today’s workshop is on plot! Boo, I say, but I’ve found kids really do need this kind of structure–you need to learn the dimensions of the box before you can think outside of it. And it is kind of interesting for me to review the standard plot graph–it’s good to remember that that’s at least a possibility when I’m writing, and if I choose not to use it I should at least acknowledge that I’m choosing.

But I actually wouldn’t really suggest grown-up writers try writing an entire story by the graph–it’s not a terrible idea, but it’s a lot of work if you are in the middle of a project–to make it worthwhile you’d have to really invest some time in the story, so that the graph didn’t just dominate it. But, heck, if you are more disciplined than I, it probably would be illuminating, what you can do with that inverted tick mark.

Instead, here are a couple less ambitious exercises I often do with stories I’m working on, which I found help immensely plotwise. Maybe they’ll help you too:

1) Graph your plot *after* you get to the second draft. If you are finding that there’s something wonky about the pacing, graph the amount of event/dialogue/description per page and see if you are finding bits that are overloaded versus bits that are slack. In my classes today, we’ll definitely be talking about non-standard plot graphs–flat lines, loop-de-loops, parallel arcs, connect-the-dots…all work if you work them, natch, but I find I often don’t even know I’m doing these things until I write/draw it out. And it’s easier to improve the structure once you know what it is.

If the sketch seems to gimmicky, simply write yourself an outline–Jenny walks to the garden supply centre (two pages), Jenny remembers Derek ski accident (1/2 page), Jenny runs into Derek in the parking lot (4 1/2 pages)–to see if you can spot pacing errors. I never ouline at the beginning, but I find at this point it is really helpful to see where I’m spending my pages. This is especially helpful if it’s a double (or more) narration, or a story with a lot of flashbacks, or anything that’s important to keep balanced.

2) I’m going to have the kids base their first round of plot graphs not on their own stories but on back-jacket copy from novels–they’ll have the basic plots from those, and fill in the rest from their own brains (at least, this is the hope). For an adult, I would suggest doing this in reverse–writing a book-cover blurb for you own story at the midway point in the process. I find that summarizing a story in the manner of back-jacket copy is…well, just as horrible and painful as summarizing in any other context. When asked to summarize, my instinct is always, “I can’t, the story doesn’t work that way, if you want to know what it’s about read it, bah I don’t wanna I hate you.” And it devolves from there. But at least thinking about the book cover reminds me that this is a necessary process–someday, I hope to have the story *in* a book, and that book will need to have some sort of description written on the cover. Sometimes, the push helps.

If I’m *really* struggling with the summary, that’s probably a sign that there’s something wrong with the story–there should be a few elements that can be easily described, at least. You’re going to judge me for being self-indulgent, but sometimes I also try writing these summaries as reviews–glowing ones. And that of course *is* self-indulgent, but it is also true that if I write down the nice things I want people to say about the work, it reminds me of what my goals for the piece actually are–which is not always so apparent on the page. And, also, on a tough day, it’s nice to imagine someone saying nice things about my work.

So…that’s a few suggestions on working with plot. Feel free to add more if you have your own better/different plotting exercises, or to let me know if these work or don’t work for you. I hope the kids like’em.

RR

March 23rd, 2010

Rose-coloured reviews *Mostly Harmless* by Douglas Adams

I have been working on reading all the Hitchhikers’ Guide books for a few months now, trying to give the new one a fair shake when I finally read it (it’s in the post right now). And then Mark proposed the Retro Reading Challenge, so I fudged my reading challenge into his.

I’m supposed to have read the book only once, and it’s possible I did, and at least 15 years ago, which seems about right. So this is my RRC review, then:

This book is hella disjointed. The first three books in the series were too–very very very episodic, and none-too-committed to causality–whatever good gag Adams could think up to put next, that’s what happened next, coherence, plot or character development, linear time be damned. The plot never really did come together in any of the books, but the characters, showing their stripes in reaction to whatever lunacy the universe/Adams threw at them, actually did resolve in reasonably consistent, fairly likeable, not especially deep folks. At least, I found them likeable.

Then, in the fourth book in the series, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, apparently someone told the author he needed more emotional resonance or some such, and so two of the four central characters (Zaphod and Trillian) get ditched entirely, Earth gets reinstated (it was destroyed in the first book) and Arthur, the bumbling everydweeb from earth who has spent the last three books stumbling around in terror (as well he should), gets to go home, sleep in his own bed, and fall in love with a pretty girl. Ford Prefect, Arthur’s sarcastic savior from the planet Betelgeuse gets to stick around, but mainly for drunken confusion.

I never really understood the parts of *Fish* that Ford was in, but Arthur’s love story with Fenchurch is just lovely, if only from a wish fulfillment perspective–there’s all manner of impossible concidence and heart-stopping joy and this really great love scene while flying… It does not, of course, make any sense with what came before–no one has experience a genuine emotion besides fear and hunger in the entire series up until now. What’s more, no on has said a dirty word, had sex or wanted to–you could safely give the first three books to children if you so desired (they wouldn’t understand, but they wouldn’t be Corrupted, either). So making the characters say “sh*t” and experience erotic desire in book #4–well, that’s changing the rules a bit.

Thus, we are preprared for book #5, wherein 1) earth is gone again, for reasons never made clear, 2) Fenchurch is gone (for good, it seems) due to an accident that is never explained. It’s basically as if book #4 didn’t happen. Trillian, the pretty earth girl who travelled around with president of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox and “told him what she thought of him” (sex, or even Trillian’s attractiveness: never mentioned) is back, though, Zaphod does not make a reappearance after book 3 (unless you count the nothing-to-do-with-anything-and-not-even-very-funny short story, Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, which is stuck in the back of my omnibus of the first four books.

Anyway, sorry–long lead-in. Trillian’s back, although this is actually not really her but an alternative-universe version of Trillian that readers have not meant before. Before she met Zaphod and went into space, she was plain old Tricia McMillan (I think that’s clever) and she was an astrophysicist–now she’s so consumed with regret she’s left the profession, is working in television, and has very little enthusiasm for life. It’s surprisingly affecting. No, really, read:

“There was something roughly the size ofa large camper van parked about a hundred feet above her lawn.

“It was really there. Hanging there. Almost silent.

“Something moved deep inside her.

“Her arms dropped slowly down to her side. She didn’t notice the scalding coffee slopping over her foot. She was hardly breathing as slowly, inch by inch, foot by food, the craft came downwards. Its lights were playing softly over the ground as if probing and feeling it. They played over her.

“It seemed beyond all hope that she should be given her chance again. Had he found her? Had he come back?”

He hasn’t, but something else happens and for a while it seems like a female character has a plotline for the first time in HHG history…but then it fades out.

Ford has a very similar plotline to the one he had in 4–namely, hijinx–but it makes a good deal more sense and actually concerns the Hitch Hiker’s Guide and so, indirectly, the other characters and some of the things that have come before in the series. But mainly he’s just there for the hijinx. And it’s awfully fun:

“Ford hurled himself at the door of the editor-in-chief’s office, tucked himself into a tight ball as the frame splintered and gave way, rolled rapidly across the floor to where the drinks trolly laden with some of the Galazy’s most potent and expensive beverages habitually stood, seized hold of the trolley and, using it to give himself cover, trundled it and himself across the main exposed part of the office floor to where the valuable and extremely rude statue of Led and theh Octobpus stood, and took shelter behind it.”

Bwa!

And Arthur, loveable Arthur who no reader would bother reading 5 books about if they did not adore? Well, he has…a series of (mis)adventures, now on all on his own, apparently searching for enlightenment and a place to call home. The adventures are funny, but they all resolve like jokes, with punchlines. And Arthur’s story in particular is heavily freighted by this idea of alternate universes, which here makes no sense whatsoever. In Adams’s highly imaginative (but perhaps not deeply imagined) universe, Earth is located in a plural sector (ZZ), thus making it unstable in the 5th dimension–depending on where you are on that axis, sometimes Earth is present, sometimes not.

For good or ill, the above explanation does make sense to me. But how does one go about moving in the 5th dimension? Arthur keeps arriving on a planet with Earth’s coordinates, realizing it is nothing like Earth and setting off for…the exact same physical coordinates again? How does that happen?

What bugs me about this is, Adams could totatally could have answered these questions; he just got lazy and/or bored with the thought process. If there’s one thing that reading 5 books of his in rapid succession has taught me, it’s that brother was a genius, yo. He totally understood the science (and philosophy) on which he based his constructions. But he had a short attention span.

Finally Arthur gets a gig making sandwiches on a primitive planet (they’d never seen sandwiches before) and Ford gets free of his scary adventure at the HHG, and Tricia McMillan gets forgotten about. Reappears, Trillian! With a daughter in tow, fathered by Arthur although without sexual participation (ah, the series returns to form) or even knowledge.

The part with Arthur and his daughter, Random (that’s her name) is really treacly, and thus in fact Random, because trying spark paternal love in this morass of puns, sight gags and interdimensional physics is a non-starter.

So, pretty much is the resolution of the novel. The gag around which the whole ending, which–to Adams’s credit–was set up two books ago is, in my humble opinion, pretty dumb. The lunacy that surrounds it, involving Tricia, Trillian, Random, Ford, and some neat repercussions from book 1–is cooler, but when it finally ends, the bang is a whimper.

The ending, it’s been noted in various places, is also really dark, and an attempt to be the be-all end-all of endings: no more books in this series, was it seemed the author’s message. Except he later regretted that, and it seems, mentioned that regret to his wife, who contact Eoin Colfer….

This seems like a negative review but it’s not–I still love this book! In response to Mark’s challenge, I should say the love that I held for it in 1994 was blind love. Back then, my tolerance for ambiguity allowed me to not understand any of the science and still enjoy the kooky tales and gags. And in 2010, I had lost patience with kook for kook’s sake, but some of the gags are pretty good, I like the characters and I get (some of) the science.

It’s a book with enough going on that two readings probably aren’t really enough, but the several pages of analysis above are probably too much. This book was written for, and with, pleasure, and should likely not be overthought–too late for that. I love it anyway, and Colfer’s book is going to have a tough act to follow (especially if he’s going to come up with an astrophysical logic for reinstating the earth).

I actually have The Salmon of Doubt on my shelf right now, the only DA book (that I know of) that I haven’t read. I am sort of uncomfortable with it, as the book consists of stuff recovered from the author’s hard-drive, which he never (necessarily) meant to publish, but I do love his writing, probably too much to neglect anything. And perhaps there are clues in there that will help me judge *And Another Thing* when I finally get around to reading it.

I meant to make this review really thorough, but I think it is just really long…

RR

Lookalike

Remember a few weeks ago this meme went around Facebook about how you were supposed to post a picture of the celebrity you look most like? Well, you probably can’t remember, because you have better things to do, but I don’t, and was really amazed at how many of my friends bear a shocking resemblance to people I haven’t heard of (but are famous, and attractive [natch, because I have attractive friends]).

Anyway, I wanted to play, too, but couldn’t, because I don’t look like anybody. Well, I look like my mother, who is a delightful person to look like (it makes me very happy when I introduce her as my mom and people say, “Well, obviously!”) but she is sadly not (yet) famous for anything. So I didn’t to do the meme.

Then, this afternoon, I was at the gym in my ponytail and sweaty t-shirt, trying really hard to do a good clean and jerk (I can do it, too, but I just can’t admit what’s on the barbell) and it came to me! It’s not the comparison I’ve always dreamed of (which is: perhaps someday someone will tell me I look like Winona Ryder in *Heathers*, pretty much my standard of female beauty).

I had to take this picture myself, so I’m not sure it really captures the striking similarities, but I still find it spooky:

Do you see it? Not, like, twins, but some definite correspondences!

RR

March 22nd, 2010

Good things happen

There are some things it is dumb to wish for, because they may not happen, because there’s nothing you can do to make them happen, and it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things anyway. So when such things *do* happen, like, say, being given an elaborate bouquet of roses or being asked for your autograph on the bus, you don’t even have a response prepared, and have to just hope you somehow make your delight apparent.

When I return to complaining about how hard my life is, someone really needs to remind me that the above both happened to me this weekend

To read about some other good things that happened to me, you might take a look at my thoughts on publishing with Biblioasis, posted this morning on That Shakespearian Rag.

RR

March 19th, 2010

The Weatherboy

Now this is just lovely: the Rattling Books podcast of my story, The Weatherboy, as read by Gerard Whelan. I know, it’s bad manners to say something I wrote myself is lovely, but it’s actually Whelan’s delicate reading of the story that I’m in love with. It makes me so happy to hear the story doing things I hadn’t quite thought of, yet are perfect for it anyway.

This story originally appeared in echolocation 7, and I’m so pleased it’s getting another life.

RR