Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Teaching

Inspiration is all about the lean

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On Tuesdays I post a writing prompt because I have had students that have trouble coming up with things to write.  They need a direction, an arrow pointing off into the distance, a gentle push into forward motion, a leaning, and they just start walking that way.  They haven’t learned to trust their own inspiration.  “Give me direction!” is their cry. (Though I don’t do this anymore, the prompts still reside on my blog and can be used repeatedly.)

I think inspiration to write is much easier than they realize and is about being willing to lean toward any little thing that sways your attention.

“Tree.”  What does a person see with just this one word?  Something will come to mind even if it is a sapling, twisted and nearly barren of leaves, a Whovian cluster of green hopeful growth at the tippy top of its highest reaching twig; two asymmetrical arm-like branches crook downwards at odds with the upward desire.  Mature oaks garbed in rough bark stand imposingly by, gruff opposers of any young upstarts grasping at the stabbing sunlight, great spears of dancing photosynthesis, splashes on last fall’s dry castaways.  In the breezy rustle that sallies down the stiff elder oaks, there marches the firm argument that supplying a cart load of seed is not a promise to provide a place to root.  The sapling quivers its reply, a sithering shuffle of curled, mint-green locks straining to rub together a complaint for air, water and light.

Just lean, all it takes is a little bit of lean.

Tuesday prompt: #38 2012

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Find two very different images that you wouldn’t normally imagine together, such as done with the movie Cowboys and Alien.

Prompt

Once you have the two ideas, imagine them together.  For example, alligators and song birds don’t at first seem to belong in the same closed space, but they certainly bring to mind a quick image, perhaps one with the alligators eating songbirds, their feathers strewn about in the mayhem of the gory scene.  On the other hand, it could be paradise if these two could reside in close company.  Maybe you would prefer unicorns and moles.  At first I thought of moles as little furry animals underground, but what if they were actual moles on the skin that would erupt and destroy the pristine white coat of the unicorn, a symptom of a serious disease.

Use whatever images you bring together to inspire you to create a scene or event.

Fingers tapping, program frozen, time for an update

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Recently, while writing a scene that I had been thinking about quite a bit (fiddling with the details, what I wanted revealed and what I wanted to just hint at), I came to a stopping point and rolled down to the end of the page so only a portion of my hour’s writing was visible.  I was still thinking through what I had typed and thought it a good time to save before I made any more changes.  I gave a quick roll of the mouse and a click on save.  The program froze with a hand tapping its fingers on my screen just above the save button.  I waited several moments, left my desk and returned to find those tiny fingers still tapping.  Ultimately, I had to force-close the program and accept that my recent work was gone.  I restarted, began the scene again having convinced myself that most of what I had written was still clear in my mind, my work at phrasing things just so still drifting before my writer’s eye.  I wrote a while, moving through the scene quicker than the first time.  It didn’t feel that I had caught all that I had worked so hard to recapture, but it was not bad.  Again, a roll of the mouse and a click.  The hand appeared, fingers tick, ticking along.  Frozen again.  I waited an hour in the hope it would come to whatever conclusion it was set on, but no luck.  This time I had not rolled the page down, so all of what I had written was still on screen.  I pulled out a sheet of my daughter’s line paper and copied.  It took a while, but I had my work written down at least.

I have pondered the problem a bit.  I use WordPerfect and have for more than 30 years. This particular version of the program is more than eight years old and does not work well with Vista unless it is set up to be run as an older version program set for Windows XP.  It has not been a problem as I set it up properly years ago.  However, Windows keeps updating, and I think my poor old version of WP has finally met the point where it cannot function with my Vista.  I tested it repeatedly, causing the program to freeze every time.  I even reset it again as an old version program, but the problem persists.  So for a week now I have not been able to write, which is frustrating as this will probably be the last couple weeks that teaching doesn’t take up all my time.

Some time next week my Vista compatible version of WordPerfect will arrive.  In the meantime, I ponder the next scenes I hope to get down and will be ready when my chance to write comes again.  I know I could hand write, but I have become so comfortable with the ease of editing in mid-stride that the thought cramps my thoughts up too tight for such slow drafting.

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.

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.