Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

What I’m (th)Inkingabout

I turn yet again to Lu Chi’s Wen Fu

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There is a reason why writers must read from the genre that they wish to write in.  They must know what others are producing and most importantly how they are going about it.  It is necessary to examine the art to grow into the artist, to watch the masters to learn to master the craft.

Lu Chi said it best.

When cutting an axe handle with an axe,
   surely the model is at hand.
      (Lu Chi’s Wen Fu:  The Art of Writing, Translated by Sam Hill)

These words are so apropos.  It is not the plot, the setting or the characters used.  It is how the plot is imbedded in the story and how the characters are designed and put into motion.  It is the choice of the right word and the reason why it is right.  It is the reader crying even when the character’s eyes are dry. 

Writers must apprentice themselves to the masters.  We must look closely in the same manner that the jeweler puts on his magnifying lens so he can evaluate the emerald and its unique setting.  Do the same as the farmer who runs the soil through her hands, or the wine maker sniffs the wine.  We must understand the process and product of the art of writing.  We must read closely the models at hand.

Writers are collectors

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You may not find a series of shelves massed with tiny figurines or thirty-odd tennis racquets mounted on the wall and never used, but we’re collectors.  We keep scraps of images, places, phrases, and emotions.  Some of us organize them in neat rows on revolving memories deep in our subconscious while others of us let them tumble about getting stuck together, so we can just reach in and grab a clump.  But we are constantly collecting from the world of experience around us.

pine resin, cool breeze, the heavy alarm of cicadas

I have lived all over the US, visited abroad a few times, and I can smell and hear these places no matter what current place is about me. In my mind the Narraganset trail lays out before me, twisting eagerly toward the Oregon Trail which I also know well in parts.  Standing on the deck of a ferry moving between Seattle, Washington, and Victoria, Canada, I can feel the rumble beneath my feet, the stiff breeze dragging at my ponytailed hair, the stacks of tandem bicycles filling the lower deck, row after row of them.  I can still see the riders standing about chatting in their matching jerseys and riding shoes that clicked in awkward careful steps that seemed to lean the riders slightly back on their heals.

I recall the day I moved into a new house when I was nine years old.  We moved often, and I had formed the habit of running outside to check out the neighborhood the moment I was excused by my parents.  I would peer up and down the street searching for children near my size and age.  This day I looked beyond the cul-de-sac I lived in, across the connecting main road into another cul-de-sac.  Three little girls were playing in the street.  I don’t remember how I introduced myself, but I do remember they greeted me warmly, and we played until twilight and the street lights began to flicker on, which was my signal to return home.  We agreed to play again the next day, to be life long friends.  Just as I was about to head home, one girl asked me if I was Catholic.  I admitted that I was Lutheran.  Suddenly, the girls became a wall, shoulder to shoulder in front of me.  One girl stated quite dismissively that they were not to play with children who were not Catholic.  They left me standing in the middle of that cul-de-sac watching their stiff little backs as they strode away.

I didn’t go home despondent; I was confused.  We had had a lovely day playing together, and one word had changed everything.  The next day I met two girls who lived several blocks away but were far more willing to enjoy lovely days with me regardless of my faith.  All six of us took the same bus, but I don’t think I ever talked or even glanced at those three cul-de-sac girls again.  I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t angry.  But that moment of separation is saved inside me.

We writers gather these moments, and somehow they grow into stories, poems, essays, novels, and histories because we never stop looking at them, turning them about in our minds, viewing them from different angles, remembering tastes, textures, sensations of the moment.  We are connoisseurs of memory and experience.

What have you collected recently?

#writers
#memories

Tuesday prompt: #34 2012

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This prompt requires you apply your imagination to something that already exits.  I have one example that will be looked at two different ways.  Recently a tree branch fell from one of the large city trees planted on the other side of our sidewalk.  From one angle it looked to me like a big spider and from another angle it reminded me of the flying predators (Ikran) from the movie Avatar.

Avatar Ikran

Big, ugly spider

So find an object that could be viewed as something else and write about it wandering the neighborhood, city, countryside or where ever. 

Building a positive writing community

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When I started on my journey as a writer just one year ago, I decided that I wanted to build slowly.  That is how I build friendships, and mine tend to last.  I want my involvement in writing to be one that carries a positive polish.  So I carry that philosophy into my approach to building a platform and making writing connections. I don’t see the positive in the flash-in-the-pan way of doing things.  So I have published my books (two so far at Smashwords.com) and I have taken part in discussions on Goodreads and this past summer, I began tweeting (which definitely reduced my Goodreads activities).  I have met some writers at both venues that I have built a sense of connection to.  Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden have been the two that I have recently made friends with.  They are enthusiastic writers and have been most welcoming to me.

Marcy and I have begun a peer feedback process for each other’s books.  I cannot explain how exciting it was to find someone to share my exuberance for completing a writing goal and the desire to write well.  Marcy and I have started to tweet #confettitweets to each other as we
share our writing achievements.  I don’t know about Marcy, but I don’t
have anyone who understands what it means to write and get to the end of
a chapter or a tough go at 2047 words after several hours of typing,
rereading, redrafting and sighing.  So getting those #confettitweets and
giving them as well has been a treat.  We hope to expand our range of
flying confetti to other authors who do their goal dances by themselves
before diving back into their creative muse.

L. A. Hilden and I have traded approaches to using time travel in our books, and it is intriguing to talk about why we chose the means we did.  I have already read Hilden’s London’s Quest (a well-written Regency Romance) and am getting a sneak peak of Marcy’s book Magic All Around (a modern lady comes to grips with the magic she never noticed before).  I am fortunate to have met these two talented writers.

Denise Baer is another author and blogger that I have met.  She has begun a Pay It Forward program on her blog meant to showcase indie authors as well as encourage the review of indie author works.  I participated and am happy to find another author who wants to bring positive action to the indie author publishing effort.

Nick Bost is a book reviewer I met on Goodreads.  He regularly reviews books and as a young reviewer with a good sense of what makes a good read, he is making his mark as well.  I have enjoyed talking about the review process with him.

Today, I just wanted to mark my year of publishing by recognizing the fine people I have met during this part of my journey as an author.  I thank each of them for adding to my slow immersion plan of joining this positive writing community.

Tuesday prompt: #33 2012

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Today you’ll practice settings. Choose two opposing settings, such as a beach and mountainous area.  Think of a specific place and don’t pick the obvious time of year. Winter on the Atlantic Seaboard leaves the beach looking far different than summer.  The waves on a particularly chilly day can actually become frozen mid-crest coming in to shore. It looks like an ice sculpture all along the beach edge thawing out as the ocean keeps rolling in, but the frozen crust of a frigid crest remains in place.  The sand crunches like broken glass, and the salt air stings your face.  As for mountains, the Cuyamaca Mountains in California are far different from the Blue Mountains of western Oregon which have a tint of blue gray vagueness and a sense of just being dropped in place without warning or preamble of foothills.  Pick a specific setting, detail it out and then switch to the other.  Flex your descriptive muscles as you change between your chosen dramatic scenes.