Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

fantasy

Yup, you can learn to be helpless

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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

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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

Inspiration for my new fantasy novel came to me sideways fashion

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I think it has been at least two years since my writer friend Marcy Peska offered to let me guest post on her blog. She gave me a set of possible topics which I perused but didn’t feel any rise to write anything. But a few days later, I decided that writing about rules and how they give a sense of environment and expectations as well as challenges can help a writer create a story.

All very logical. Since magic was the topic, I began with explaining how having rules for magic created conflict: what if you needed it to work this way, but according to the rules it doesn’t? Or what if the rules worked for able-bodied individuals but created a terrific burden for those missing a specific ability.

All very logical. I decided I needed to give an example. It makes it much easier to understand something if the one talking about the thing has something to point at. See, this is one. Turn it upside down, look for the make and model information on the bottom. Push a button, etc.

So I said what if every wielder of magic had to carry the source that contained the power used to perform magic. (And no not a wand.)

Jahl is a sixteen year old who has reached the age of wielding magic. He is young and carrying around a foot-square stone an inch thick and heavy with magic is not such a difficult thing to do, right? Except that Jahl has a twisted right leg that makes walking even a half a block an ordeal. But he wants to earn a living as a wielder. He’s determined and uses the cheapest and simplest way to accomplish his goal. He goes to the store where he can rent a standing stone. Once he carries it to the customer, he must stand on it to have access to the magic. Fortunately, the store provides a site just to the left of the entrance where wielders can stand and hawk their magic talents.

Very reasonable way to build a client base. But what happens when the client wants Jahl to meet him somewhere? And there is the conflict.

So I had this nifty blog post about how rules can create story. And then I got very possessive. I didn’t want to give away all the details of a great story, but without the “See, this is one,” the post was worthless. I copied it and shoved it into an idea file on my computer and went back to working on my current #wip.

Marcy never go that guest post. What was I thinking? I should have just written another post.

But that story idea kept swinging back into my attention. And I kept pushing it aside. I had my book series (SciFi time travel) to work on. There was not time to work on a fantasy. Then why not send Marcy the post? Well, no, that was not going to happen.

Then last April, my contemporary novel about three women coming of older age was making me miserable. I could not write more than a couple of hundred words a day. I had the time. I had the desire, but nothing was coming that seemed to offer the book any real growth and development.

Then Jahl started walking through my creative mind. I thought, I just need to get away from Joanie & Friends for a while. Why not fiddle with this magic story (a short story I could finish in a week, two max).

So it’s May now and the story that was to take me away from Joanie so I could freshen my muse a bit is 68,000 words in length. I write about 7,000 words a week. I think about it every opportunity. Jahl just keeps on fighting the good fight, so I haven’t wanted to leave him.

Actually, I don’t think I can. The boy needs to get this done. He must prove he can be a master wielder. He must find out who is responsible for the Wielder Wain that killed off nearly every wielder in Chussen Faire and left him crippled and every surviving wielder of the five Wielder Clans either too afraid to work magic or too afraid to return to Chussen Faire.

I just wanted to explain why I haven’t been blogging lately. It’s not that I have been lazing about doing nothing. I’ve been busy getting to know Jahl and watching him work through his challenges to become a master wielder. I figure a few more weeks and the draft will be done.

Marcy will get it as she is one of my best beta readers, and she’ll forgive me for not sending that guest blog post two years ago, which by the way she has never mentioned as she is a forgiving soul, or forgetful. Either way, I think she won’t mind this substitution. And she can claim inspirational initiating action to the story in a sort of sideways fashion. Just like I can claim I’m the reason my sister-in-law is happily married because she asked if there was anybody I knew who was the exact opposite of her ex and just wanted to go dancing. They’re married, more than twenty years now, and I had a hand it that. Sideways fashion.

If you found this post interesting, feel free to comment or share it.

My new fantasy will be out I think by October and available at Smashwords and Amazon and other fine ebook retailers. Keep an eye out for the pre-order listing on Smashwords and other ebook retailers, though probably not Amazon as my account with them is not set up for pre-orders. No problem, Smashwords purchases can be downloaded in whatever reader format you have.

#writing
#fantasy
#inspiration

Book Review: The Spirit Child by Alison Naomi Holt

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Holt’s The Spirit Child is the first installment of a series of books that twist Native American spirit guides with feudal manors, strong female characters and realms in degrees of spiritual growth and power.  The storyline includes the involvement of actual walking, talking, and occasionally sarcastic guides in the form of owls, wolves, panthers, badgers, etc., working to maneuver the few spiritually awake humans to safety and teach them to negotiate an increasingly dangerous world due to a darker group of powerful animal spirits.

That sounds a bit like a mishmash of ideas, but it’s a mix that had it an aroma would be described as delicious.  Bree Makena, Duchess of Danforth, is the main character, and she is ripe for change.  Heartbroken and determined to be alone and disconnected from society, she is ready to do battle with the first annoying individual she meets, but she is unwilling to watch a girl child be sold into slavery and certainly raped if no one steps in. Makena steps in, and life changes from that moment on.  The child turns out to be capable of seeing any spirit guide, not just her own, but she is as flawed and broken as Makena. The two travel more than just the rough territory of the lands they call home (or want to call home) as they deal with the fear and denial which keeps them from recognizing their guides and learning how to become part of society in ways they have yet to find appealing or even safe.

Makena and the child Kaiti have to not only figure out how to belong to each other but also how to belong to their spirit guides who are not in the least bit uncertain about how things should be going if only those stubborn humans would stop fighting their destinies.  Other characters also carry the story well, from long time friends, healer Becca and bathhouse owner Maura, to tribal leaders and royal families.  There are strong male characters as well and tribal elders who bring depth and meaning to much of the difficulties Makena and Kaiti face. Timur, Makena’s dead husband, as the story progresses, is easy to accept as a person Makena might find impossible to face life without.  It is inevitable that one will get attached to several of the individuals Holt breathes into life in her writing as the reader steps smoothly in and out of the thoughts and concerns of a variety of supporting characters as well as the two main characters.

Arriving at the end of this book is a lot like it is in real life: few things are wrapped up in tidy bunches; much is left that needs to play out, and the trouble that was on the horizon is still lurking out there.  The difference is Makena has grown out of some of her troubles which is good because there are several more difficulties building up she is going to have to face if she wants to maintain life’s new vision and new hope.

I enjoyed this book and view it as one I will probably reread, especially while I wait for the next book in the series to come out.  My main rule is if I anticipate reading a book again, its worth five stars.