Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing

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.

Teenagers and writing

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I have been teaching creative writing for about six years now.  The things my students write can be revealing, intriguing and by far inspiring. Many start at the beginning of the year just writing about the frustration they feel about a friend’s actions or the awful/amazing feeling they have about the person they are dating. But as the weeks progress, the writing gets deeper.  They write each day, and each day they are a step deeper in making a writing corner of their own.  The student begins to see what is behind their writing; they grow and what comes out is magical, not because suddenly there is a Pulitzer prize forming in the room, but because they have grasped some essential understanding.  Instead of writing about their frustration, they write about frustration.  They examine it for its bitter taste, sallow color, caustic odor and suddenly they know frustration.  I love that day and the days that follow.  This week two of my writers graduated and I wept to see them go.  My last words: don’t forget to write.

Revision, revision, revision

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Back to Lu Chi’s Wen Fu: The Art of Writing
In Chapter VII.  “The Key,” the last three stanzas are referring to searching out the best words and revising.

What wants to continue must not end;
   what has been fully stated is itself a conclusion.

However each sentence branches and spreads,
   it grows from a well-placed phrase.

Restrain verbosity, establish order;
otherwise, further and further revision. (lines 5-10)

The ideas in these stanzas are so important to completing a work.  A writer seeks precision, to make the “well-placed phrase.”  And when it is said well, the reader understands.  The difficulty comes in deciding if what is written met the demand.  I trust my instincts.  I have been working on an anthology (which I have mentioned in prior posts) and have been going through each story. Two stories continue to make me hesitate to include them, so I finally pulled them out of the work.  What is left is strong, but still in need of revision.  And so, I am off to “further and further” revise.

A writer’s platform: A scary propostion

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So I have been working on my “platform” (please grimace while saying this, cringe a little, then reset shoulders more firmly).  I have a Twitter (@LDarbyGibbs) account and an Indie Writer’s account, a Google+ something or other and a Facebook page (which I still have not figured out after three months of ownership.  It didn’t help that it changed format just when I was getting less nervous about what I should do with it.)  But Twitter is less overwhelming by far than any of them.  After all, a writer should be able to write a sentence or two on the fly.

My most difficult problem is friend requests.  I don’t get them often, but when I do, I have no idea how to respond.  Mostly I think, “Why do you want to be my friend?  What about me caught your attention?”  If I can look at their blog, profile or information, I’ll see if we have anything in common, or if I find them interesting.  But I don’t just say, “Sure, join the party.”

Follow me, I’ll follow you:  those just make me crazy.  It seems kind of like little kids collecting stickers.  My daughter, when she was little, loved to collect stickers. She would smile gleefully when she received one.  Stick it to something, didn’t matter what, or give it away to someone she liked just to see them smile, but she never asked about it again or searched out where she had stuck it.  Followers are like that if they are just returning a follow.  Sure, I want followers, but I want to earn them, not buy them.

Writer’s platform just coming into visibility

Where was I:  oh, yes, platform.  Mine is in the just-coming- into-visibility stage.  That is if it were a tangible thing, at this point, you would see a vague outline of wood planks, with darkened circular shapes, probably bolts, notable in pairs at the ends and about halfway along each plank.  I work to build solid stuff, but it’s not finished. So, invisible man kind-of-thing just starting to be made solid appearing, but not yet.  This blog is one of those planks, and it is one of two that appears like you could step on it and not fall through. My book is the other solid looking plank.  And see that one over there, off to the right at the top of this foundation?  That one is the anthology I am working on.  The last short story is getting fleshed out.  Then it is heavy duty revise and edit for the lot of them.  Maybe by late June, early July it will debut.  And one more plank will appear.  A person could lay a towel down and get suntanned perhaps.

Tuesday Prompt: #21 2012

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This time, find instrumental music that you can listen to, classical, new age, even 30 seconds of music with lyrics, so longs as those 30 seconds run before the lyrics do. Whatever you find, close your eyes and play it for 30 seconds to a minute.  Listen until you can see the scene it would do well to be the soundtrack for.  When you have that image firmly in mind, start writing.