Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing Meditations

Advice: Back up your computer

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There are some things you should just do:  floss your teeth (at least the ones you want to keep, according to a dentist I used to know), cleanse your face of all makeup before you go to bed (thanks, mom), mean it when you say your sorry (self explanatory), exercise at least three times a week (just to stay in a holding pattern), be yourself (do you really want to be loved for something you are not?) and BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER.

BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER!

I have two computers: one is my working computer that contains all my lesson plans and teaching stuff.  The other is my home computer which has my writing life.  Both are absolutely essential to me.  Sure I have hard copies of everything, but I don’t want to have to retype it all.  So I use a little external hard drive to back up my main hard drive.  Of course, it is only hooked up when I am backing things up.  There are numerous such devices available.  Mine is a WD Passport with bunches of gigabites on it, and it’s tiny.

I routinely back up my two systems so I needed it to be easy to manage.  It’s pretty simple to work the function of running the back up, and it can be set up two ways: auto and manual.  For some reason my laptop doesn’t like it when the Passport is set to automatically access the drive.  So I removed the auto backup software and do it manually, which is just like using a thumb drive.  Open it up, and drag and drop the whole drive into it.  My home computer manages the auto access well. So I handle things differently, letting the software determine what has changed and needs to be backed up.  Either way, I get my work safely saved to a second drive, and I have less to fear about losing my hard work.

Paper holder taking up space on the desktop?

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Since I scribble my notes on anything at hand, I tend to have a variety of paper sizes and weights to work with when I am transferring my notes to my computer.  Those papers without much stiffness just drape over when I prop them up.  My standard desk paper holder also takes up too much room, and I have had to add a clip to the side because the fan keeps making the paper wiggle and fly about.  And it takes up just as much room when not in use as when in use.

Then my mother-in-law gave me a Page-up dingus.  It looks like a little more than half an egg, that has a flat side, sitting on the flat side, and takes the same amount of room as an egg sitting on the flat side.  There is a curved cut in the top where you set the paper.  Since my phone, mouse, glasses, camera, notebook, etc. also take up room on my desk, this tiny thing is perfect.

You might think the fan would have the same effect, but you would be wrong. The curve creates a stiffness that keeps the paper in place. 

I am in no way affiliated with the creators, makers, or sellers of this thing. I just like it.

What do I want in the books that I read & write

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I am at the beginning of redrafting my second book in my Students of Jump series.  In the process, I started thinking about what it is I like about the books I like to read.  Knowing that will help me make sure my book has those qualities.  So what is it that holds my attention when I read a science fiction novel?

1. depth of humanity:  I like my characters to show their fears, joys, fellowship to other characters
2.  activity:  I don’t mind a lull especially after a heavy action or emotional scene, but I don’t want the lulls to last too long, and they must have purpose.
3.  well-developed characters that I can sympathize with even if I don’t like them.  I understand why they are doing what they are doing.
4. humor:  life always has moments of humor, and I want any stories I read to have it, too.  Silly moments, puns, laugh instead of cry, etc.
5.  emotional involvement: some catharsis for at least the main character
6. connection to other characters:  relationships that show the main character has family, friends, co-workers, enemies, pets.  I don’t like when they exist in isolation.  Everybody has backstory and forward reconnections to others
7.  I want to see (hear, smell, touch, taste) the environment, things, actions described.
8.  Sense of local: where are they, where are they going?
9.  the fiction of science: space travel, technology in every day life, the stuff that is related to but not of this contemporary time.
10. I like to get lost in the story: (I don’t mean the author dropped me off a cliff, and I have no notion of where the story is going and has gone).  I want time to go by that I didn’t notice because the story caught me up and carried me away.

After looking at my list, it is clear I have set myself up for a challenge.  I had better get onto it.

Today I wish I was perfect, and probably tomorrow, too

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It is hard to believe, but I am close to publishing my second book at Smashwords.  This work is an anthology of shorts stories, Gardens in the Cracks & Other Stories. They are loosely connected by the “world” they are all derived from in that similar technology and history are imbedded in each.  The title piece (“Gardens in the Cracks”) and another short work (Scrapper, a novella) have some characters in common as well as time and general locale.  The remaining stories developed out of experiments of one sort or another: repeating motif, what if, narrative from a secondary character, and such.  I think all writers will agree, the editing is the hardest part.  I have gone over them so many times looking for every error I can.

Besides the fact that I write recursively and therefore edit constantly as I write, I am now on my fourth line edit of this work.  I can say that turning on the feature that checks grammar and mechanics in a word processing program can be the most annoying and beneficial experience.  I found myself examining nearly every sentence and defending or correcting innumerable aspects of my writing.  Frequently, the program would highlight a word or two and state “if you are using this to mean…., then you are correct.  But if you mean…., then….”  I can’t say how many times I said, “Can’t you tell?”  Every once and a while I was glad it did not let a single questionable word by, as I had in fact used a word incorrectly.

Dialogue can play a large part of a fiction work, and in an effort to sound like the genuine article, my characters often speak in phrases or are not necessarily grammatically correct.  So I was reminded on a regular basis that I had fragments of sentences or slang where I intended them to be.  This still was a benefit as I noticed that some of my characters did this more often than others, and I had the opportunity to decide if this was a characteristic I wanted for the individual or if it was too heavily used.

The fine tooth comb that I am using now gives me a headache, but not using it would be worse than a headache.  So off I go again scraping each sentence free of error.  This is one of those times when I really wish I was perfect.

What we read is certainly part of what we write.

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When I was a teenager I didn’t always have a book available, and I was an insatiable reader.  So I would go to my father and ask if he had a book to spare. He was always going on business trips and read whenever he was on a plane. Frequently, he would ask me not to lose his place, and he would tell me when his next trip was so I could get it back to him, and then he could pick up where he left off.  I read science fiction, and he read action adventure, but to me a book was a book was a book. If it had words placed in sentences, I was going to read it.

So I read a lot of John D. MacDonald, Ian Fleming and Mickey Spillane novels, though I wouldn’t hand them to my own teenage daughter. I came to know their series characters, such as James Bond and Travis McGee, pretty well.  I have been shaped by those books and characters.  And I know my writing was influenced by them though I don’t write in that genre. I think the character development and dialogue style of my own writing is built on the foundations of those works, as well as the authors I read when I could select the books for myself rather then beg for reading material from my father. So interior dialogue, the aside and internal motivation vs external motivation are as much central to my writing as the genre of science fiction is. And then I read The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything.  Time Travel became my favorite fiction, and I saw MacDonald in a whole new light.

Ray Bradbury: a fire in the belly

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I have read a few of Ray Bradbury’s books.  They offer more than enjoyment and an easy way to pass the time.  He had such a way with metaphor (was it a real snake or a stomach pump tube, a jet overhead or a scream?) and was one of the most literary of the major science fiction writers.  I have read Fahrenheit 451 numerous times, as well as The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles.  He was a writer that made the reader think, and think deep.  I was not so much captured by his characters as by his ideas.  I have taught, like many English teachers, Fahrenheit 451.  It has always made my students look at their education in a new way, a privilege they don’t ever want to lose.  For that alone I could thank him profusely.  But he has also taught them tolerance, the beauty of a well-turned phrase and how people can be manipulated into not trusting what they know.  Most importantly, he showed that the human being must question, must seek greater understanding and failing that will surrender to madness.