Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing Meditations

A post about the constancy of life and New Years

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Blossoms to hold onto.

It is that time of year again when everybody is writing
either their New Year resolutions or their accomplishments for the past year.
My thought is more along the lines of what is still present, still ongoing. So
here is my New Year list post.

  • My Labrador companion Cagney it turns out is not
    turning ten years old in a few months but in fact is going to be nine for
    another year. She and I are quite pleased about this turn of events now that
    she is over me aging her faster than she needs to. 
  • Cagney is still an excellent backwards tap dancer
    and gives a show every night when I measure out her evening meal. 
  •  I am still working on Book 4 of the Students of
    Jump series, which appears each day, (though I keep writing more scenes) to still
    have another 6K of words to get to the end. My book apparently has some Dr.
    Who Tardis qualities: the inside is larger than one would expect. 
  •  I am still disappointed with the movie version
    of The Hobbit. Where in heck did this
    white orc come from and since when was a dwarf the main character of a book
    titled The Hobbit? 
  •  Don’t get me started on Ender’s Game. But I still feel the same. Good news: no white orc.
  •  When building a house, everything takes longer
    than expected, still. Yet the roof is on, windows are in, garage doors are
    going in as I write and siding is going up. I remind myself daily that I could
    still be smoothing the concrete in the garage, and suddenly I feel as if we
    have been moving along quite swimmingly. 
  •  I am still getting older and expect to continue
    aging in the future 
  •  Teaching has been, is and will continue to be
    very hard work. Fortunately, students still have the capacity to learn despite
    their nearly all out effort to avoid this. I get updates a year or two after
    graduation that show that these kernels of learning take root and remain
    exponentially active for many years. As of this year, I began teaching my first
    grand-student. He is a much better student than his mother. Appears kernels
    imbed themselves in the genes. Who knew? 
  • Creativity still begets creativity. I am testing
    a theory: One can never run out of creativity. I’ll let you know the results,
    but you have to hang around. I won’t make the post until shortly before the
    end, and I plan to live a very long time. 
  •  There are in fact motor homes that one can be
    comfortable in. You just might not want to bring along two Labradors and two
    family members to test the comfort level. 
  •  You should still floss the teeth you want to
    keep. 
  •  Teenage girls notice teenage boys faster than
    the speed of light. Boys might be a little bit faster noting girls. Research is
    still coming in. 
  •  Having to pay bills teaches responsibility.
    Politeness, consideration, appreciation, timeliness, good work habits and
    sympathy are also benefits of this experience. Earning grades through one’s own
    personal effort teaches the same lessons. 
  •  A kind word still makes a difference worth
    noting and is therefore worth giving. 
  •  Still keeping company with the best of writer
    friends, Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden. 
  •  Another year with the best man in my life and he
    assures me he is looking forward to another. 
  • The finest of daughters continues to grow into a
    woman who will one day also be my best friend. Though I don’t look forward to
    letting go of her girlhood, I am already reaching for her adult hand. 
  •  My daughter’s Labrador is still terrified of
    white floors of any material. She treats them like ice and skates on her curled
    black nails in a comic lack of control that promises to end with all four legs
    spread out like Bambi but never happens. It seems an appropriate phobia
    considering the time of year. 
  •  I expect to continue blogging for another year,
    and probably longer. 
  •  Based on my current writing projects, I see
    several years of writing ahead. Theory on creativity appears well supported.

#NewYears
#Creativity

Been hanging out with the lady writers these days

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Ready to read at a moment’s notice

Just today I decided to make a list of my new favorite
authors and was surprised to find that they were all women. What’s up with
that?  All my past favorites have been
largely men, or in some cases women using male pen names. Same question
applies. I suppose I’ll have to think on that, but for now, I thought I would
just highlight these ladies of writing. To avoid any favoritism, I am following
the alphabetical rule.
Kim Headlee – she
writes a series of books that is steeped in Arthurian legend. Her
characterization is strong and ties nicely into the legend without being
strangled by it.  The female characters
are strong as are the male which is what I like to read as it really bothers me
when generally one gender is more capable, intelligent and sensible than the
other.  She is a skilled writer, and
especially so in this particular series. 
For more specific details on Headlee see my post of Learning from the Masters on Headlee.
L. A. Hilden – I
tumbled onto Hilden’s writing via Goodreads. It’s been a while so I can’t
really say if I read a book by her first or started chatting with her first.
But they were not far apart in either case. 
I have enjoyed her time travel regency romance series.  She is particular about her research down to
the tiniest details.  I am a sucker for
good research as I love the marriage between fiction and history.  It has been quite some time since I focused
largely on reading romance, so Hilden’s books are actually a step away from
my current interest, but not too big a step as I have lately run almost
exclusively to time travel in my reading and this particular series of hers
anchors itself in the main character’s stumble back and sometimes forward in
time. She’s working on another novel laced with time travel that I have been treated with a glimpse at.
Marcy Peska –
another author I have become close friends with. We met on Twitter via our dog
interests and blossomed into sharing our writing interests.  Peska has two books out that are urban
magic/legend stories imbedded in Alaskan landscapes. I am not much for urban legend,
but throw in some magic and I am ready to take the leap. Leap I did and I met a
strong woman character who is finding her way through unexpected elemental
magic, friendship and danger. The characters are genuine and full of spark,
particularly Vivian who shares the journey in quips and quarrels that show her
depth of character and struggle to deal with the unexpected magic she finds all
around her.  Remember, you promised a
bunch of people (not just me) a book 3, Marcy.
Veronica Roth – the
author of a dystopian series. At this point in time, she hardly needs me to
tell about what she has written. I enjoyed her books because I found her
created society a reasonable evolution and its ultimate breakdown also well
supported. Her characters are easy to connect to, in fact, easy to feel
possessive about.  I found I was arguing
with the play of events, but one cannot control the world he or she lives in,
so how can readers expect everything to flow as they wish. This did not stop me
from “Whatting!” at particular events, but I prefer my flabbergasted
rampage to a predictable read any day.
Jodi Taylor – Her
St. Mary’s time travel novels have quite hooked me.  I wait for the February publication of her
fifth book in the series. (I also read her Nothing
Girl standalone novel and loved it as well.) What I appreciate most about
this series is Max’s humor and internal dialogue. She is the main character
and tells the story with wit, flawed wisdom and loads of emotional baggage.
After reading four of the series books, I know that when there is a moment for
me to rest my tense expectations, something bad is about to happen and Max is
going to be stretched to the limit of her imaginative escape powers, and
emotional scars are going to tear, a marathon to the end.
Rysa Walker – The
Chronos Files series.  I have read the first two books of
the series and am waiting on the third. It is sort of a YA/NA time travel mix
or perhaps it is a YA evolving over time into an NA. In any case, I am
thoroughly enjoying the time travel “training” of Kate by fire and
confabulation. Poor girl. It’s not enough to have her losing lovers every time
the history takes a flip, but she has to stop her grandfather from thoroughly
destroying the world as she knows it (or keeps knowing it more than one way), while
deciding who to trust/distrust/retrust/untrust and work the darn hourglass
thingy that moves her through time.
April White – I
will tell you right now, I avoid vampire and werewolf books purely on
principal.  I have no explanation for
that other than if everybody is writing about vampires, I am probably going to
get annoyed. (Go ahead and shake your head, I keep reading time travel. I know,
I know. I didn’t say I was logical just avoiding a particular genre for some
reason.) The point in bringing this up is that White’s Immortal Descendants
series includes a vampire or two.  And
the main character is in love with a vampire. But that is not the focus of the
series. Time Travel is the focus as is getting back alive, figuring out how it
all works, protecting people important to her and avoiding all the interference
that comes her way when she is just trying to save her mother, and then her
lover, and then her friend, and his friend, and everybody else who gets pulled
in. I hope book three comes out soon.
The immortal Connie
Willis – I could blame her for getting me hooked on time travel if it
wasn’t for Heinlein who gets the blame for just about everything I do related
to reading or writing.  However, I had
been on hiatus awhile reading a lot of literary stuff (Jane Austin about killed
me) and then I read Blackout,
Bellweather, Doomsday Book, and….. 
You get the picture. She was just trolling along, and I took the bait
and been hooked ever since. Because I like time travel and nonstop up and down,
breath-stopping difficulties and general lost in time stuff!
So there you are. That is what I have been reading lately.
Yes, I have read other non-time travel books in between and several by men, but
these are the ladies I keep checking up on and packing my Kindle with. They are
the reason my files are now sorted by author rather than book title.
Who are you reading? 
Is there a common factor?  Are any
of these ladies on your list? If not, why not?
#reading
#timetravel
#writers

Creativity: the art of the accidental inspiration

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Rules of Magic

A couple of years ago, a fellow blogger and I discussed writing guest posts for each other. She writes in the combined fantasy/urban legend genre and hoped I could write a post about magic or how place contributes to a story.

I decided to do it on how every story has rules, and how rules of magic effect story development?  I thought I would come up with a set of rules of magic and show how these rules would govern the flow of the story.  Great idea, huh?

So I begin asking myself a set of questions:

  1. Who is allowed to use the magic?
  2. How is the magic performed?
  3. Is there an age requirement or limit?
  4. When is one eligible to perform magic?
  5. How is one recognized as a performer of magic?
  6. What makes one especially good at magic and therefore a respected provider of magic?
  7. What/who determines quality, strength and usage?
  8. Are there social rules governing its use?
  9. How does economics play into its use?
  10. How does social standing play into it use?
  11. How does one learn or is it innate?
  12. Can one be employed as a magic provider?
  13. Are there any personal costs to performing magic?

My post never was sent to my friend because in the process of answering the questions so that I could show how they would govern a story, I ended up with a great idea for a short story. A case of accidental inspiration.

Perhaps these questions could generate a story for someone else.

What unexpected inspiration led to a story, novel, poem or what-have-you idea?

#magic
#inspiration
#creativity

Creativity: when the track is full and starting to backup

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You know that feeling: itchy fingers, voices in your head, ideas backing up, the urge to sit and type like a maniac through a scene, a tirade of dialogue, a well-strung motif? That’s where I am at, about to break out in a rash of words.

But there is a hold, the ever present disruption of life.  I have other work to do. So the log jam of voices stack up like train cars bumping into each other, linkages snapping in place, and me hoping I don’t run out of track in this backward build up of freight cars.

I bleed off pressure by writing on note cards quick bits I might forget, short cues of dialogue, beginnings to leap off from, to prime the pump when that moment of tunnel writing pulls into view.

That is the nature of being a writer while working at a job that does not include being a writer. I have said before that I teach and that teaching keeps me quite busy. I live two lives which impose on each other, sparring for my time, my creativity and my concentration.  I do not fear boredom when I retire. And sometimes lesson planning turns into an intense creative process that is nearly as satisfying as completing a chapter, getting through a bit of emotional dialogue, typing ###.

But at this moment, writing now this little post will have to suffice as a tug on the rope to let off steam until this weekend provides a few hours of uninterrupted racing down the tracks of my current book coming to an end or my next book establishing its voice, both rattled into line, the engine having gathered enough pressure to make my breaks squeal against the anticipation.

Who else is at the station? How are you holding out?

#creativity
#writing
#waiting

Creativity: Using your own experiences to authenticate your writing

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 My last post was about brainstorming with my writer pal Marcy on a novel idea involving dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Much of what is going into the book is based on my experience with my mother and my father-in-law who are both suffering from this kind of memory loss.  Every phone call I have with them or chat with my mother-in-law or my sister, who also keeps contact with our mom, is a source of inspiration and information. But it is also disheartening because it will only get worse.

I tell myself that as painful as it is to watch and keep up with the changes they are going through, it is part of life, part of loving someone and part of the truth that must be in what I write. What we experience is our greatest source of originality and authenticity.

I know this book is going to tax me and pull hard at my heart, for every wall my character must climb will echo a difficulty my mother is going through. I have long since given up having those chats with my mom that always left us laughing. For many years I would unload my disappointments through the receiver of my phone, and my mother would be on the other end listening.  But it was never a sad event for I would find myself giggling over those troubles because she brought that out in me.  They were fodder for humor instead of tears or anger when I shared them with her.

But I cannot do that any more. She cannot hold onto the same conversation for more than a couple of minutes. Sometimes she thinks she is talking to my daughter or worse me back when I was in high school.  It is much harder to make her giggle and much harder for me to find the humor in the troubles that come with the changes she is going through.  Nowadays, she is sharing with me her difficulties, and I am the one hoping to bring humor rather than sorrow to her experience.

What life experiences feed your writing and give you hope that you will find peace in the effort?

#creativity
#Alzheimer’s

Creativity: round robin brainstorming can lead to strong writing

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Talking the story into life

Partner and group brainstorming: I use this technique in my creative writing class. We gather around the table and discuss ideas. After we settle on one, I step back and write down each plot point or character decision as they work through them and build a consensus.

Now and then I read through what they have so far, and then the group is off again revamping, adding, changing.  Epiphanies fly about their heads, like those crazy fireworks you set on the ground and dodge as they zip off in random directions.  My students ram through half-baked thoughts as quickly as their mouths can speak them, making connections and changes to enhance emerging motifs.  And each student adds more flame and fires-up another idea.

Brainstorming

That’s brainstorming for strong writing.  That is the achievement of more than one mind reaching for development, precision, cohesion. I love those moments because they don’t just make for great writing, they make for the truly creative moment. If you have ever been a runner or done any kind of exercise that demands individual focus for more than half an hour, you may have felt the sensation that makes you feel as if you could go on running forever; the pace is perfect, the weather, the degree of breathing.

You float along without really feeling your feet hit ground or the sensation of running at all, almost an out of body experience. Time seems to stands still.  When two or more people are on the same run through an idea, it’s like that glorious running experience.  It feels as if you could create forever and you do not want to stop.

Very recently, just this past weekend, I felt like that.  I shared an idea I have been mulling over for a few months.  Soon my writer pal, Marcy Peska, and I were digging into the characters, their concerns, histories, families, questions, possibilities and my idea took on more life, seemed to breath a few halting breaths each time Marcy or I sent off another email between us.  The characters that had been slipping into my creative moments stopped being just skin deep. 

Sharing with Marcy and gleaning tidbits from her knowledge and experience made for development I would have taken much longer to come around to by myself.  What I love most about brainstorming with Marcy is that her questions are framed so that my characters are real people.  “Does Joan have Alzheimer’s in her family?”  Now I have to sit down with Joan and find out about her family history and for very good reason.  Colleen in a matter of seconds became even stronger because she is the type of person Marcy likes.  That alone added considerable depth to what was already a strong-minded woman.

Brainstorming with another writer or an interested friend is my kind of idea development. I am sure many of you use this same process. Is it a major factor in your process?  What others benefit idea development?

+Marcy Peska
#creativity
#brainstorming