Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing Meditations

Why My Yellow Dog Winks

by

Sorry, she doesn’t wink on command.

First off, she’s not really yellow. She is a yellow lab who is real-butter pale. But she does wink, and it appears to be deliberate.

Reasons she winks

  1. Cagney is the reincarnation of my dad who was a winker. Sure, I have proof. When she is very happy, she sways side to side when she does her hurried, happy walk. So did my dad. Over time, I came to grow on her. Same with my dad. By the time I was an adult, he was pretty pleased he was my father. Cagney decided I belonged to her when she turned five. She does not take instruction well. He was a died-in-the-wool dedicated self-teacher. She looks at me like she knows everything, and I’m just catching up. Yeah, she’s my dad.
  2. First day she came home, she was nine weeks old. We were teaching her to wait on the rug by the door while her feet dried. I said, “Stay. I’ll let you off when your feet are dry.” She winked (“I got this”). She was house trained in three weeks.
  3. Today, I let her in. “All you have to do is sit there for one minute (I raised my index finger). Just one minute.” She winked.
  4. I tell a joke to my daughter, turn to Cagney and she winks. She got the joke. 
  5. There is a tiny puddle of clear water on the floor. I ask Cagney and Lacey (chocolate lab),”Who drank too much water out of the water bowl?” Cagney winks. Yeah, she’s so funny. She’s not cleaning it up.
  6. It’s late, I’ve been furiously writing. Cagney is half on her bed and half off. She looks like she’s so tired she couldn’t get on the bed all the way. I say, “So who’s ready for bed?” She winks. She thinks I’m so funny.
  7. She sneaks off the backdoor rug leaving four muddy prints before I catch her. “Now I have to wash the floor.” She winks. I look around. The whole floor could use a mopping.
  8. She’s been out recently but is giving me the squint eye. “You want to go out?” She winks. “Aw, not a necessity, a desire.” She plays tennis-ball keep-away with Lacey until they are both so overheated they can barely walk three steps without laying down. “You ready to come in?” She has just enough energy to wink.
  9. Our two dogs are laying in their usual yin yang formation. They’re facing each other. Lacey is intently staring at Cagney, both sets of ears are perked forward. Cagney winks. Lacey leaps into the air and attacks Cagney’s pale white throat. Lacey’s lips are drawn tightly over her teeth. My pale yellow dog rolls over while being mauled and looks at me. Yup, then she winks.

Yup, you can learn to be helpless

by

Opportunity: learn from failure

However, you can also learn to help yourself and learn you are capable of improving. Let yourself fail; let others fail. Then give yourself and others the opportunity to learn from that failure.

I read this great article about how people learn to be helpless through experience and environment. The piece was tweeted by Cash Nickerson (@cashnickerson). The article “Don’t Give Learned Helplessness a Chance” was written by Patrick Willer who first explains how the process occurs in animals and then relates it to human behavior.

Why did I connect so quickly to this article? I have been battling this phenomenon in my students for nearly 20 years now. I hear “I don’t know (IDK)” and the ever popular condition of “I’m bad at that.” They have become convinced that they are helpless. Willer’s article though brief offers great insight into how this behavioral response can become embedded rather quickly.

Willard brings up a common example that I have found students to feel: ” A classic example is that of a child failing a test at school. The child
may think he or she is dumb, which is not necessarily the case.” A true assessment or not, the belief can set the child into a pattern of failure through actions that prove the belief correct.

Freedom to fail and learn from the experience without recrimination is important. Freedom to ask questions and be given answers that validate the concern or confusion open up opportunity for change and the belief that things can be changed. Knowing that others are finding this to be true is just as important, so interpersonal engagement must be encouraged.

Willard was applying “learned helplessness” to the business world, but it certainly fit the start of each year in my classroom and the push to giving my students the opportunity to change their negative perceptions of themselves both individually and as a group through their own actions and how I received them.

But it’s more useful knowledge than that, though increasing confidence in employees and students is worthy enough. It applies just as well to writers working on character development. I have two characters who have been effected by the feeling of not being able to change what has been a major part of their lives. The opportunity to challenge the belief helped them both change over time and take control over their lives and their perceptions of self. Choices that destroyed their friendship held two characters back from rebuilding it until both had the motivation to break out of their past and the belief that it was possible.

excerpt from The Sharded Boy

   Jahl tried to imagine how he would work on the type of items
the Marsons tended to do. It would mean Jahl would have to take a stone in most
cases to their shop which would either take away time that he could be earning
from proper clientele or he would have to rent a stone an additional day if he
was taking it for the evening.

   Rouen hung his head. “I’m sorry for never sticking up
for you. I should have. We were best friends and I did nothing.”

   Jahl hadn’t wanted to think back to those days. The two boys
had been best friends. But it had been more than that. Until Jahl was nine he
had been friends with all the children. And then one day a new kid in town had
pointed out Jahl’s crippled leg and his slowness in play. Crimlo had made fun
of him until the children were rolling on the ground giggling, gleeful over the
creativity of the barbs Crimlo had flung. No day after was ever like the days
before that child had come to town. Rouen and Jahl never spoke again.

   Anger from the treatment had long since been overshadowed by
the general pain of living. Jahl didn’t know what to say. But he knew he wanted
the work. “Why can’t anyone know?”

   Rouen’s face looked relieved that Jahl had not wanted to
talk about their days as children. But his answer to Jahl’s questions
pained him. “What if my father never returns to work? People will stop
coming to us. We’ll lose our livelihood. Please Jahl, do this for us. I wasn’t
the best friend I should have been, but you have always been a good person. We
know we can trust you not to tell anyone. Say you’ll do it. I have a week’s
worth of work backed up. I’ll never get it done. And new work is coming in
every day. I’ve not turned anyone away.”
 

   Often those who most seem to be out to help us, intentionally or accidentally encourage these negative beliefs.

excerpt from The Sharded Boy

   “I have always looked forward to seeing you at the
mercantile. When I didn’t spy you out front as usual, I worried. What happened?
A couple of day’s illness wouldn’t do this.” He gestured at Jahl’s thinness.

   “I tripped on the stairs and was knocked unconscious. Rouen
found me. By then I had caught a chest cold and been without food a couple of
days, and then I couldn’t eat what with being sick. Today is my first really
good day.” Jahl wondered if he had laid that on a bit thick and if perhaps
Bragg had seen him answer the door earlier. But that would have been okay. Mom
wasn’t here being a mother hen yet. “Actually, Mom is just being a bit
overzealous. I was moving about the house earlier. But she doesn’t believe me.”

  “Loving mothers are like that.”

   Jahl caught the sourness again in Bragg’s tone and wondered
if the man had been aware of his mom’s rough mothering. “I suppose.” Jahl
attempted to put the same degree of dissatisfaction in his voice. Over the big
man’s shoulder, he saw his mother wince.

   “Overzealous or not, it is best not to overdo.” He surveyed
the room again. “Take it slow getting this old house together. You have time.”
He grinned. “But I, though willing to come to your rescue, which I am happy to
see is not needed, am rather short of time. Ona is home preparing supper and
wondering where I am, so I’ll be off.” Bragg laid his hand on Jahl’s shoulder
and squeezed the thinness. “Mahre, feed this boy. Get some meat on his bones
before he shrivels away. And, young man, conserve your strength. You’ve not
been strong, and overexerting yourself will only pull you down further.”

   “I’ll take things easier.”

   Bragg pointed to the closed door of the workroom. “Perhaps
you should turn one of these rooms into a bedroom so you don’t have to go
upstairs at all. Your room at home was downstairs, wasn’t.”

   “True, but I won’t get stronger if I don’t push myself.”

   “But you have limitations that can’t be altered.” Bragg
turned to address Jahl’s mother in the hall. “Right, Mahre, he shouldn’t go
beyond what his body can take, should he?”
Allow yourself to fail, allow others to fail, allow your characters to fail, but also give yourself and others the opportunity to rise out of that failure. 
#writing
#learning
#failing

My two month run with the book that wrote itself

by

Questions and answers.

I’ve already written about the decision to stop working on my contemporary novel to work on what I thought was just a fantasy short story. I think a followup is due as just this week I finished the 99K draft of the fantasy novel. It took less than two months to write, with an average of 7,000 words per week that included teaching, lesson planning, grading and professional development.

This was a completely different process for me. I wrote nearly every day for at least two hours; on weekends closer to six per day. In the past my books have taken a year to write, with a great deal of redrafting. I just finished the book, so I don’t feel I can say that this one won’t take similar grueling redraft work, but the first draft process has certainly been a different run.

In the last few days I’ve been doing cleanup on the draft and expanding a bit here and there. Nothing monumental. I want to get the draft out to my beta readers as soon as possible. This also forces me to step back from the work and let it grow cold. Then when I look at it again with the input of my beta readers, I’ll be able to be less attached and really consider their suggestions. The book has felt like it wrote itself, so I really need the away time and their input to ensure the story arc is well fashioned.

With the first draft so fresh on my mind, I want to list the things I found particularly exciting about this new writing process.

  • My characters were constantly chattering in my head. I’d ask a question and the answers would come. What ifs?, why thats?, and who do it?,  inspired scenes playing out along each explanatory line. This Socratic approach to developing character and plot invariably lead to me looking forward to my evening writing session. 
  • Because I was writing as the ideas were coming, I often was learning about my characters in the same manner my readers will. Tendencies, reactions, objects that seemed innocent in one scene become important in later scenes. Or limitations or challenges a character had to overcome would teach a skill that was needed later. But very little of it was pre-planned. I don’t usually outline my novels, but I often have much of the plot and the characters developed. Not in this case. I knew the main character and had one scene (the last one) largely imagined.
  • Because I had little plotting set down and few characters in mind, there were always surprises that added to the texture and conflicts of the story. One particular scene had two characters upstairs talking. A sound of objects hitting the floor below interrupted them. When one character turned to the other wanting to know an explanation for the sound, I learned about a new character and a on-going conflict my main character was going to have to deal with.
  • The daily flow of writing also kept the story line fresh in my mind 
  • I keep a OneNote (Microsoft Office program) folder for each book I write, and I turn to my notes whenever I am concerned about continuity. As I wrote this book, potential issues would come to mind, and I would open up my OneNote and add the information immediately. I have several sections: Wielder Lore, Characters and setting, Commerce, Society, Conflicts, and Research. Each was a resource useful for maintaining consistency. Having the story so immediate and the notes entered as the story unfolded kept me involved with the story arc.
  • I felt close to the characters and more in tune with their motivations because I was writing almost daily. I was behind by two scenes almost every day, so I never felt that I didn’t know what to write.
  • It wanted to be written. There were days when I wished I could just sit back and watch a movie. The book wouldn’t let me or at least not for long. Too much of me needed to keep writing because the characters never stopped being present and active.
  • Because I knew the story was always ready to be written, if a thousand words I had just typed looked to be leading in a direction that left my characters milling around uncertain, I would just hit the enter key a few times at the point where everything had felt authentic and ask, “So what are you really doing?” And off the story would run. Sometimes the words already written and set aside would get re-fabricated into the story; other times, I felt confident deleting them.
  • The story involves (among other things) a young man learning how to wield magic. Sometimes the magic would just take hold of him and he would wonder what was actually bringing about the results he thought he had initiated. Writing this book, often felt that same way. I, Elldee, would sit down to write and then two hours later, and 2000 words further, I would lean back and wonder what time it was, when I had last eaten and what the heck had I been writing.
  • I often would get immersed in my writing with my other books, but that usually occurred a third of the way in; whereas, this book started from the first word as though it had been sitting in me just waiting for me to agree it was time.

All and all, this writing experience has been productive. I wonder if my next writing project will run as quickly and fluidly.

Let me know about your writing process. Do you usually outline and develop in advance or are you a panster? This was my first seat-of-the-pants approach, and I rather liked it.

#shardedboy
#writing

When the story won’t speak, pick up another tale

by

Stand on stone words

Just a few weeks ago, I decided I needed to shift to another writing project. My contemporary novel, Joanie and Friends, had hit a wall. I was writing, but it was failing to feel original and authentic, like I was just dragging the words out of my characters.

So I remembered an outlined set of rules for a story about magic. It had been bubbling up in my mind frequently, and I would run through my ideas but not put a word down and remind myself I already had Joanie’s story to tell.

But I remembered that I often write on several pieces in different stages: rough draft, cleanup draft, final draft, and final edit, bouncing back and forth feeling very invigorated by the multi-action writing.

My box set of time travel books 1 -3 of the Students of Jump was published along with the fourth in the series late last year. I had run through all my work and had thought delightedly that Joanie would more than fill my time and would benefit with being the only work on my mind. With three narrative voices, it seemed very practical. But I hit that wall at 18K words. I cringed every time I sat down to write. Who would I pick on this time to continue the story?

But back to multi-writing. I reread my notes on that fantasy short story and felt compelled to write. Some 40K words and 5 weeks later, and I have the first half of a novel drafted (not a short story anymore) and a good sense of conflicts and characters figured out. I haven’t felt any impetus to return to my previous WIP and can only suppose that it just wasn’t ready. Standing Stone, the working title of my current roll, seems to have a steady stream of words each night. My average weekly rate is 7K.

When Joanie or Mathilda or Colleen speak up, I’ll stop and listen and write if they have something strong to say, but for now this bit of writing magic is flowing nicely. Maybe knowing there is something else I can turn to is part of what is making this roll so well; the demand that there be words to type isn’t strangling me. Rather each morning more of the story comes to mind, and by the time I am home from work, the next scene is ready for drafting.

So my choice to shift from my contemporary novel and answer the call of a seemingly simple short story about magic was a good one. I’m looking forward to writing every night.

So have you had to pull back from what you thought was a ready-to-go novel and found yourself immersed in an unexpected backup? 

When at first you don’t succeed, try, try and then try something else, then try again

by

Standing Stone

I’ve been working on a novel, Joanie and Friends, that is based on three retired women who have their lives pretty much set the way they wanted them. They’ve worked hard and married good men. Life is running along well. And then it doesn’t. All three women share in the telling of how they proceed when living life is not the easy road it had been.

I have the conflicts, the characters and the movement of the plot all blocked out in my mind.  I have my notes and the first 13,000 words. But these last three months, hearing their voices has not been easy. I’ve used a number of strategies to get my characters talking, but the results though not bad, have just been a constant wheedling, wrenching and forced expression.

Lately, some notes I have on a fantasy story have been rising up in my mind. Of course, I have been pushing it away because I already have this big project with the ladies that is nowhere near where it should be in word count.

Yesterday, I thought I would just look at my notes on “Standing Stone.” By the end of yesterday, I had more than 3,000 words written but not for Joanie and Friends. So I am stepping away from the contemporary novel and taking up the fantasy story.

With my other books, I was always work on two to three books, poems, stories or a combination of the three at the same time, so why I suddenly decided to focus entirely on one work is a mystery. I think I’ll let the ladies rest for a bit while I work on this fantasy. They’re awfully pushy women when they want to be, and when they’re ready to share more of their story, I am sure I won’t be able to ignore them.

So the lesson I learned is to pay attention to my process. I move from work to work, getting each done in its own time. So “Standing Stone” it is, until it’s Joanie and Friends or something else. Perhaps I’ll work on my poetry collection Fine China Family next. It’s been whispering and clinking in the background off and on, too.

Leave a comment. What’s your process?  What happens when you don’t follow it?

#writing
#process

Nope, it has nothing to do with that. Nothing. Nothing at all.

by

Empty: a metaphor

It’s a one-word-in-front-of-the-other night. I don’t see the light at the end, but I know if I just keep typing, words will keep dropping down in front of me. This always works, yet I have not been applying this highly reliable rule in my life. Sit down, turn on computer, double click WIP and let the words drop. Nope, I’ve not been doing it.

The real fly in this ointment is that last year I had so much to write and so little time, yet I managed to write my longest book to date (100K), get it to my beta readers, edit it about 50 times in a variety of ways and publish it. I even updated some book covers, rewrote my blurbs and maintained my blog. Now with time streaming out my ears, my blog is a wee bit anemic, I’ve written very little on the book that has been dogging me for about two years and which I had to hold off until book 4 of the Students of Jump series was done and published, and I have just 13,000 words written so far of Joanie and Friends. Appalling. And I have no excuse. It’s February, for gosh sakes!

I haven’t been on Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest in what seems like ages.

My life has been no more engulfing than anybody else’s, a loss here and there, a gain or two, a lot of smooth sailing and generally the normal actions of a busy life. And I am not alone in my sluggishness. My husband is just as unfocused. He says its having our daughter away at college. Could that be it? The mother part of me is missing?

*************************************************************************

Okay, had to stop and digest that.
Writers nurture ideas.
We foster growth and change in our characters.
We step back and watch them make mistakes, hope they gather their wits about them and come out of the stituation okay and when all else fails, we step in and give them a prod or two rolling again in the right direction.
Writers consider possible consequences of actions, follow out scenarios and shift the possibilities.
Writers tuck their books into bed and hope they go out into the world and make good, reliable friends. We tell people about our story’s beginnings, shout out our grandest schemes coming to fruition, trouble our friends with our plot glitches and compare the poor scribbled things to successful writers’ works.
Writers are parents, and perhaps my parenting mode is still recovering from sending off a much more prized creation than any book I’ve ever written.

***************************************************************************

Alright, let’s not get carried away. I’ve just been lazy, luxuriating in my extra breathing space this year. I’m a writer and writers write, so soon I will be tapping away my usual word count, characters bobbing about between my ears, chatting away, rustling through my days for the next opportunity to get back to writing. Yup, enough playing around.

This has nothing to do with my daughter being off to college with no one she’s known for years watching her back. Nothing to do with going to bed not knowing if she’s yet in bed. Nothing to do with avoiding eye contact with my partner because if I do hold his gaze too long, he’s liable to start talking about how much he misses her, and then I’ll think I hear a crack in his voice, see the early mist of a tear in his eye, a sigh on the rise in his chest. Then I’ll start to cry. Silly me. I just need to sit down and write something.

#writing
#daughter