A harsh critic

Last night I found the motivation to write a short story from the July flash fiction section of Absolute Write.  The prompt had to do with hearing a voice from the past within a crowd.  Anyway, I wrote my flash fiction story, just shy of a thousand words.  I was pretty happy with it.  It's the first piece of writing that I have 'finished' in god knows how long, so I thought, "I have to show this off!"  I implored my wife to take a look at tell me what she thought.  Now, I should preface this with the fact that she is a secondary school English teacher much like I am, and had just finished a bout of essay correction.  At first, she was relieved to read something that she could sink her teeth into, but still had her critic's hat on.  She pointed out a few little holes in the story, which I banged together in just under an hour.  I realised that I need to do this a LOT more often; get more used to constructive criticism - something I give all day at school, but am not that used to getting. 

So readers (if you are out there), who is someone you go to to get some critical feedback, even if you know it's not exactly what you want to hear?  Who is someone nearby and trustworthy that tells you, "Uh, that part kinda sucks, but this part over here... nice!"

Back to it,
Luke

Sleep please

Last night I was taken back to my teenage years when my wife and I watched Dead Poets' Society.  I couldn't remember where I'd seen it before, but then it came to me that we studied it in my penultimate high school year!  Wow, what a film.  I can't think of another film that better grapples the concept of freedom's constant struggle against the overwhelming presence of conformity.  Naturally I had my teacher hat on while viewing, and why not?  It's an inspiring film for teachers.  Even though it is a movie, the point still remains that illustrating a concept by involving people in it, is by the far the best route to enlightenment.  John Keating (Robin Williams) tackles the hurdle of conformity head on when he takes the students to the courtyard and lets them walk around freely and without inhibition.  There are so many great scenes like this.

It's very early, why did I get up?  I suppose I had a sudden burst of energy that propelled me from my bed and before I knew it I was upright.  That gets me thinking, what is the earliest you have ever got out of bed to write?

Bleary-eyed,
Luke

Ahh, the wit of 'em.

I was going to resist posting about incidents from school, but I caved.  Something made me laugh aloud in English class today: we were discussing the latest text that we are studying in class, and I asked students in pairs to sum up the main message of the text with the best sentence they could.  Some of the sentences were decent.  I gave them my summary sentence after having heard the whole class.  Toward the end of my never-ending sentence, I referred to "the protagonist's inner journey"... and promptly heard a whisper come from the back of the room, "this sentence is a journey".  I probably wasn't meant to hear it, but had a little chuckle nonetheless.

It got me thinking about 'reaction time' on witty responses.  Some people just 'have it'.  They can fire sharp comebacks in the heat of conversation, while others smile and nod, sit down to eat their lunch, go about their day, and then on the trek home think, "I should have said that!" as their wit-ometer slowly ticks around and catches up.  Is it something you can teach?  Or is it completely innate?  I'm very intrigued by that sub-layered curriculum of teaching; beneath all the content there's that something else the more interesting teachers can offer - those little pearls of wisdom, life advice, those things that round out a person.  There's more to teaching than you think, particularly if you overthink everything like I do.

Onward and upward,
Luke

Like a plague...

Today at work, my WIP was all I could think about!  There I was teaching senior secondary students about the management of human resources, and as they sat quietly pondering the process of selecting employees, I sat quietly pondering how the protagonist was going to be perma-altered by the tri-climax of the novel, the coming together of the three major plot lines at the pinnacle of the action!  I'm sure there were some questions posed to me, but I continued to gaze thoughtfully at a piece of rubbish on the floor with a myriad of possibilities racing through my mind.  Might this be procrastination in a brand new wrapping?

That was not the end of it.  The bell rang for lunchtime and I shoved my belongings into my bag, ready for home.  A colleague glanced across the staff room, her fleeting eyes hinting, "He's lost his mind," on the second day back after break!  I discreetly unpacked my laptop, my iPad and those cumbersome textbooks, like I was just practising the pack-up routine.  Well, I was.  Truly.

I think I need a beer.  Or, you know, a brain might help too.

A fantasy world awaits,
Luke

Less whine, more action

Just write.

Haven't we heard that before?  It's such simple advice; advice that I struggle to follow.  The deeper I look into the fantasy world I have created for my WIP, the more I realise there are so many things I did not consider, or pushed aside, thinking they will work themselves out.  For example, there are two main factions in this nation, and their disagreements eventually explode into a cold war - but it seems I have not provided adequate thought into the real reason for the disagreements in the first place.  Was it just to propagate some primary confict?  Pfeh!  Look deeper, son! 

Unfortunately, the main aspect of the world I created that I have all but ignored, is the religion.  I suppose I have just ambled along with the assumption of a Christian-like religion, with one God, that the whole world accepts.  Pfeh again!  This very night I plan to attack the core of these issues and make some decisions!

There it is.  Whine over.  I do feel better.  Admitting the problem is the first step to resolving it, is it not? 

Stay happy, keep warm, love, and be loved,

Luke.

Writing Inspiration

After posting yesterday, I found myself thinking "When and why did I start writing?"  Strangely enough, the answer was quite clear, yet unfortunately unoriginal.  When I was 16, my English teacher directed me to a novel in the library I might enjoy called 'A Game of Thrones'.  I was completely consumed by Martin's world, and rode every bump through to 2005 when he published 'A Feast for Crows', book four in the supposed seven book series.  It was around this time, in '05, when I dejectedly realised that the next book in the series was not coming for quite a while.  I needed more!  I was taking some creative writing subjects at university at the time, but there was one class which really opened my eyes, I believe it was called 'Writing Extended Fiction'.  This is where I developed the idea for my current WIP, which undergoes a name change every couple of months, indecisive as I am.  However, the idea is loosely based on the political turmoil faced in Martin's Westeros.  I have not found much in this specific genre I call 'political fantasy', so I'm grinding my way through the first of a trilogy I am writing, at excruciatingly slow pace.  More on that later.

A couple of days ago I received Martin's latest novel in the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series, 'A Dance with Dragons'.  I have looked at the maps inside the first few pages, but I can't bring myself to begin.  Why?  Martin has a cavalier disregard for the emotions of his reader as evidenced by some major characters being brutally disposed of earlier in the series.  And I found myself thinking - Can I handle more of this at the moment?  Will this influence my own writing too heavily?  The gorgeous novel is sitting in a prominent spot on the bookshelf for now, its pages awaiting my eager eyes.  I hear it calling me.  It won't be long until I cave.  How can I possibly resist?

Back to work in the den,
Luke

Greetings!

Greetings fellow internet dwellers!  You have for one reason or another found your way to my blog, where I shall share my thoughts on interests of mine - primarily writing and music/songwriting.  Through my life I have been a notorious offender at beginning things and not seeing them through - this blog may be another such thing.  So if you have found your way here, and your brain waves were at the very least mildly stimulated by something I have blogged, please, I would love to hear from you!

I have been toying with the idea of a blog over the past few weeks, avidly reading the Absolute Write (AW) forums, which has been providing me some sorely-needed inspiration for my writing, which I will post about in coming days.  Alas, here we are - come on consistency!  I know we have not seen eye to eye over the years, but as Dylan said: "The times they are a-changin'".

So it's good night from within the den until tomorrow,

Luke