Learning from fictional characters

I know that I have discussed that I have learned valuable lessons from my own fictional characters. That may sound odd, but it is the way things happen sometimes. The other day I was working out a scene in my head about a character who learns he inadvertently caused a death and he is devastated by the information. He is blaming himself. Another woman comes to the cemetery where he is and tells him that although she blamed him for the death of her best friend at first, she no longer does anymore. The waves of violence, according to that character, began many years ago and just kept going until it caused her friend's death, not him. She was in the same place too, but made up her mind that the cycle of anger and violence was going to stop with her. That included self-blame. Enough is enough.

All over the world, violence is continued down generations, creating waves upon waves of anger, vengeance and fueled by more violence. No one remembers how it all began. A small child is beaten and molested by adults and grows up dysfunctional and often attacks others or in the case above attacks herself. On and on it rolls gathering additional anger as it grows like a snow ball down a hill until it is huge.

I had such a childhood and unknowingly added such karma to this world, my own versions of anger when I either correctly or incorrectly interpreted anyone's behavior towards me. I was the snow ball going down the hill and getting bigger and bigger as I grew older. I lashed out at others and of course took out the anger towards myself. Well, like the fiction person I outlined above, enough is enough. It stops with me.

Maybe or even probably the world will not notice my lack of participation in the cycle of violence. I am not laboring under the delusion that it will be noticed, but on some level somewhere it will. I believe that. It is the story of the man who picks up starfish on the beach and flings them back into the surf. When asked if he could make any difference to the huge number of starfish that die breached on the sands of this world, he replied that it made a difference to the one he just threw back into the water. Well, I am going to do this one starfish at a time. Who knows what effect I will have, but I know I will not be contributing anymore anger to this world.

Wasted time

Writers are the luckiest people in the world. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. All I have to do is close my eyes and I can hear my mother and other relatives tell me that I waste so much of my time just dreaming. Oh, those moments, hours, months, years of daydreaming taught me how to construct plots and characters. They were not wasted, not at all. We as writers are lucky in what people see as a huge waste of time such as daydreaming, is our bread and butter.

I think all writers should be able to deduct all books as a tax deduction and not just some that are directly related to the craft. Writers need to read including anything that looks interesting. We are lucky in that most of us love to read, but it is a necessity for us to do so. I wrote a story about a character who was Lithuanian-American. Luckily, I had just read a book of Lithuanian recipes and used one for the story. I won a prize for that story. Everyone asked me if I was Lithuanian. No, not at all.

I take trips and the details of my trips always end up in some way in my stories and books. I think writers should be able to deduct those trips and not just those that are directly connected to what they are working on. I took a series of trips to the deserts of California to work some archaeology digs. I used that information for years after it happened. It was something I did as a volunteer. I still use the information I obtained on those trips although I have not been there for a long time.

Writers use everything in their lives in contrast to other occupations. I used the experience of childbirth and raising children, buying and fixing a house, working in 9 to 5 jobs and those jobs that were more hours. I use everything including my walks on hiking trails. I use my experience in fixing meals both in those that worked out and those that did not. Occasionally, I go to theater parties in Ashland, Oregon and I use that too and not just the plays.

Sometimes, it is not old messages from parents that are in my brain but ones that I created for myself such as I wasted time not writing but walking in the park. I love to spend time with my grandchildren especially my youngest who loves to go to the train station and watch the trains. I am sure he doesn't think it is wasted time. I don't either, but I use those experiences too. When I do tell myself that I am wasting time, I just have to think about it and I always discover that there was something important happening then. As I said, writers are the luckiest people in the world. Nothing in our life goes into the trash bin.

Looking back on my writing and others

I worry that my grammar is not up to standard. Who doesn't? I also worry my sentence and vocabulary is too simple, too naked, too bland. When I do edit my writing as I am doing down as I enter what I wrote in a notebook into this blog, I notice that I also have the tendency to be wordy. I think I tend to use 25 words when half that number would suffice.

As so many other writers, I read other writers and marvel how well they describe a summer day, a woman in labor, a man walking alone at night or the underground tunnels under London. Some writers that I read wrote just a few years ago and others from a few hundred years ago.

I try different things when I write to see when I read it later if I can understand what I wanted to portray. I have mentioned in these posts that a pencil is a writer's best friend, but the delete key has replaced it.

There is no doubt that the computer has made my life easier as a writer as it made me a better college student. I don't think in words and often don't know what I htink on any given subject until I write about it. Other writers are this way.

Some writers when they write, ooze their personalities all over their work. One such writer is Richard Rodriquez. It is good he writes personal essays instead of fiction. Some fiction writers include themselves in the narrative of the plot. I am re-reading "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens and although I am enjoying it I am hearing Dickens loud and clear as if he is using a megaphone.

Some writers have been accused of writing in too simple prose such as John Steinbeck. When I read that a while back, I picked up a short story and looked at the writing and found it beautifully crafted. The critic that I read was totally wrong. Steinbeck's sentences and vocabulary are clear, polished and beautiful. Some writers are read in translation and the reader is never sure if the prose is the result of the writer or the translator.

I am going to continue to write, but I am also going to continue to read. I think one can always improve. I will keep the delete button close at hand. What else can I do?

Thanksgiving Day

I read a blog this morning about not giving up after the envelops carrying your work arrive in the mail with rejection slips. That is true. I have been lucky and grateful on this day of Thanksgiving that when those rejection letters came in and I could not take it anymore, I took a vacation but not from writing.

I remember the feeling of freedom when I knew the stories were not going to be sent in but would sit in the hamper so to speak. Then I could just write and not worry whether or not it sold. Every time I have seen advice to the writer, it was "study the market". I began to hate being a writer when I did. I wrote what would sell and not what I wanted to write. Writing became a chore.

Now, when I write, I write for me. If it sells, great. If it doesn't, I put it away and bring it out again. I write what I want, but I don't depend on writing to pay the bills. I have other income that comes with retirement. I am very grateful for that. I am grateful for Social Security, CalPers, and Veterans Pensions. I do sell occasionally. I now love writing again. It is fun and I write what I want. I am very grateful.

Notebooks

In Korea, I have one laptop that stays on my student desk in my apartment. It is hooked up to the Internet. I asked for wireless, but the company did not seem to have it. Others in this tech savvy country seem to have those long trailing telephone lines all over their apartments attached to their computers. The only wireless service for computers have been in some universities. I don't know why but there you are.

At first, when I wanted to write somewhere else I really missed not having this laptop to work on my book of short stories. Then I adjusted by buying those cute little books of blank paper they sell in Korea that are of high quality and low price. I have a bunch of them. I use them to write essays and the short stories when I am not in my apartment. I have discovered by the very act of putting them into the computer I have added one more step of editing. It has worked out. I also don't feel encumbered by carrying a laptop over my shoulder.

I had looked around where I normally sit when I am not home, drinking coffee and enjoying cheesecake or a rice burger and I did not see a plug and I am certainly not going to get wireless service. As I wrote, Koreans have it for their cell phones but not for their computers for some reason.

There is something about the act of physically writing that gives one detachment when writing about the story and characters. I don't know if it would have worked for a novel, but for a book of short stories it is working out very well. I think it would work out for a novel if I worked on a chapter at a time. Still, it is not only convenient but fun.

Then I have my journal. I am trying to deal with issues and matters before I go home in three weeks. I don't want to return to the world I was living in before I came here. I had a monster writer's block. I don't have one now. Sometimes, when writing about my dysfunctional family background, I like to be in public. I feel safer, more comfortable than writing about these things alone in my little room.

There are other reasons for the written journal. I also draw pictures in my journal and nothing trains the eye more than drawing. I have been drawing with a black pen and then filling it all in with some colored pencils that I got at Home Plus. The price of the more expensive pencils were a lot cheaper in Korea than in the US. I know there is a way of drawing on the computer, but for meditation reasons, I like doing it by hand. I am also a big believer in writing meditation and create my own way of doing it as I go along.

Many of the notebooks that I have bought here in Korea have English on the cover and some nice artwork. As mentioned before, the quality is very good and they are about one dollar or less apiece. I spent ten dollars and bought ten of them. I bought all that they had with art work featuring a zebra. I even bought an extra blank journal because I am going faster in my journal than expected. I also have one on my computer.

Of course, every writer does what he or she must do to facilitate the writing. I know writers who have to use a certain brand of pen and never use a computer. They send their stuff out to a typist. I know some that stand up and write while others sit in bed and one that loves sitting in the tub (with hot water, natch.). With notebooks, I can sit in bed if I want especially as the weather is cooling down, and it is so warm in bed.

One of my pet peeves are people who tell you how to write. I am trying to learn to keep my mouth shut. I was sitting in Home Plus and several women from a church I attend came by and one of them said as I put a sticker on the date on my journal that "I was like a girl and her diary". I like to use stickers and draw later. I was really pissed but kept my mouth shut. This is a woman who never wrote a journal and that is her choice but I have been writing non-stop since the age of 13. Another writer told me never write in bed because it was so lazy. Very famous writers wrote in bed.

Writers are the freest people on this planet. Be ready to put your hands over your ears when someone tries to tell you how you should write. Create your own system and if it works, use it without guilt. The biggest problem I had in writing was listening to other people including writers. There is only one writer you should ever listen to, and that is the writer that is sitting in your chair. That writer speaks volumes if allowed to speak.

Writing blogs and other educational projects

I read other writing blogs all of the time. I am impressed by them. I also read books by writers telling other so-called would be writers how to be writers. I look at the classes that are offered online and in the universities and colleges. I am impressed by all of them.

This blog isn't fancy and full of resources you can access such as the places I have visited. No, this is a different sort of blog. I try and put things on this blog that I think writers need to know but are not always told. Maybe that is useless information, but it is information that I found out through trial and error and have become golden for me.

For instance, many places touch upon the need to read other writers. It isn't a need. It is a necessity. If you don't do it, then you are a hack, a writer who will never rise above the waves and waves of mediocre writers out there. That is it, pure and simple. If you don't like to read, then maybe you should try another field of endeavor. There isn't a whole lot of difference between writing and reading.

You can go to all of the schools of writing in the world, but you won't learn as much as you will if you do two things every single day: read and write. You have to write every single day as if your life depends on it because your writing life does. You are the violinist that needs to practice on the violin and if you don't then your talent will wither away. Even if you can't get a story going, write in your journal about anything. I had a monster writer's block until I found out that I wanted to write about some things in my life in my journal that I was not allowing myself to do. Then when I did, I got my "groove" back.

Every day, you need to read and that does not mean you read all authors. You can read the ones you like. I suggest you give up your library card and start to buy books, second hand books or books on sale at your local Barnes and Noble. Then you can go as slow as you want with a pencil and mark the heck out of it. Let the writers that have gone before you teach you how to write and it is a heck of a lot cheaper than taking a class. Go slowly and develop your instinct for what works and what does not. You are alone and no one is saying over your shoulder how to write. Let's face, writing is a solitary affair. It will never be otherwise and you need to learn to depend on yourself.

If there is a third part to this, let yourself dream. Create stories in your head, move the parts and people around and notice what works for you and what does not. If you get bored with the story in your head, chances are others will too. Let yourself loose. Put everything in a fantasy you want and when if you decide to write it, the unrealistic parts will go away. Play around with the imagination. That is what it is for. Have some fun with it. Writing is fun if you allow it.

Lastly, have faith in your creative imagination. If no one is publishing your kind of stories, keep going. If some professor tells you that your stories stink, quit his class and do all of the above. Don't let any editor or critic tell you at the beginning level what works with your writing and what does not. If you are getting ready for publication and an editor wants to change something consider it, but at the beginning put it down the way the story comes to you. And for heavens sake, edit it. Your pencil is your best friend.

Fact and Fiction Writers

I read a while back that novelists and other writers of fiction often will tell people stories that are not totally true. They often improve the story. It's just the nature of the writer. I know I have this tendency at times. The writers that I have known seem to have this penchant.

The other day I met with a writer who was traveling through Korea after spending some time reporting on President Obama's trip here in Seoul. He is a journalist. He and I went to the same journalism school many years ago. He has relatives who live here in Korea and took advantage and paid them a visit.

He also is a novelist. We talked about this propensity to shaping and creating events and people that writers have. He told me that it was the one thing he could not do as a journalist and the opportunities were there but it was a big no-no. Some journalists who were frustrated fiction writers did give in to this temptation and forever lived to regret it when they were caught by their readers and/or editor. It is much harder to fool the reader than one's editor who often is a young man or woman who doesn't read all that much and does not have the sophistication of a seasoned reader as the readers often are. Sometimes, it was the person being written about who did not like words being put in his or her mouth even if they were better said.

I asked him if he always had this temperament because even W. Somerset Maugham in his book, "Summing Up", warns people that authors are not the most reliable reporters of the people around them.

"Good heavens yes. I used to get accused of telling white lies all of the time. I don't think I ever understood quite why I did this until I met another writer. He was telling me about something that happened to him forgetting that I was there too. I almost didn't recognize the incident. I have since learned all fiction writers do it. Its in our blood, so to speak. As a journalist, I can't do that. I don't have that freedom. If the subject of your story uses bad grammar, then you don't give him a direct quote. If he says something great, then you do. You never burn your bridges with someone you may want to interview again. "

I was the same way and hated the journalism part of my writing career. Sometimes, I would be sitting in front of those large typewriters and want to change things a bit, smooth it out and so forth and I would have to sit on my hands until the feeling past. Now, when I am writing, I give it full rein.

I asked him if he got tempted to change the words of President Obama. He shook his head. "No, the man is very literate and well-read. He is actually a lot easier to follow than the previous president because President Bush said a lot of things you really could not put down or people would think you were making things up. I am not saying this because I disliked the man because I didn't. I just think he has a form of dyslexia and gets mixed up in his words at times. The press is not a forgiving lot."

The one thing that writers do, is describe the shadows of human kind. It is in the stories that we write. Poets write about it as well. We look at life differently as the so-called normal people do. The everyday events of living is just fodder for us to use in our work. In accepting the shadows in others, it is best that we accept it in ourselves.

My friend said: "The best thing I ever learned as a journalist and novelist is that when people start to harp on me for this or that I remember that there is nothing wrong with me. It was one morning when I got up to go to work and I had gotten a call from my mother the night before who told me to watch those tricks of the imagination that I was so prone to. When I opened my eyes I remembered her words along with everyone else. Don't do this. Do this. Stop dreaming. Then I realized that maybe they like their world that way, but I don't. There was nothing wrong with me. I am just fine the way I am. I never looked back."

I think this is good advice.

Consider the source....

You, the writer, have something you are proud of in print and along comes a critic that slams you against the wall. Being like most writers, you are devastated. Well, before you lower the boom on yourself, please consider the critic. Many critics come from a non-writing background. That does not necessarily precludes them from passing judgment on a piece of writing; but some critics don't read and that does preclude them from giving any consideration of anyone's work.

Some writers prefer that the critic be someone who does not write for a living. I, on the other hand, prefer that the critic be someone who have put some time in writing. The best critic, I think, in the business although he is now getting too old to write much these days is Gore Vidal. His tongue could cut down a forest of trees. I love to read a writer's opinion on different writers. Some writers don't want this and they also have a point. What no one wants is a critic who does not have an educated palette. This is a critic who has no background in other writers past or present. There are some magazines that I no longer subscribe to because they have literary critics who had never read the classic writers and poets. I saw no value in their commentary. It would be like asking someone to judge different kinds of spaghetti sauce who had never ate anything but peanut butter sandwiches. It's not worth considering.

Can Your Own Writing Change You?

One of the advantage in not knowing whether I have readers is having the freedom to write what I want without hesitation. I would hope if I had lots of readers, I would do the same. However, I realized that what I wrote yesterday evening here (don't pay attention to the official date and times of when these blogs are written because I am on Korean time and these blogs are on some other time.)changed the way I view what I write about.

I was a teacher of journalism for a while and I used to tell the students that we should look look at the student newspaper as if it was the New York Times and it has to be the very best we can do. Many of the students did not respect their own newspaper that much. I did. I like to believe that my blog is right along the best in the business of blogging although in reality it may not be. Who is to say what is best and what is not? It's mine and that is what counts.

I ask myself if what I am writing will contribute something positive the world of letters and if it doesn't I don't put it down. I often go through some written articles on a few publications and sometimes I recommend them for my Facebook page. This morning, I used the same criterion. Is it mean-spirited and does no one any good or is it valid criticism that is basic information that needs to be out there?

I would never have guessed that what I have written would have changed the way I do things. It has. Of course, I quoted other people in my essay of sorts but the general scope of the ideas were mine and they changed the way I do things. They did fit my philosophy and ethical bent. I would not have accepted them so readily unless they did. Maybe, it is Jon Stewart that changed me. Still, it tickled me that I would have been an influence to myself. Here I am, sitting in Daejeon, Korea alone in my tiny apartment giggling over something that I wrote. Maybe, I need to get out of my apartment today. It is a beautiful day.

Being Critical of other Writer's Work

Since the rally at the end of October held by Jon Stewart in Washington D.C., many people have been questioning their approach to criticizing their fellow citizens regarding politics. Even the host of Countdown on MSNBC has elected to remove one segment off his show, "Worst Person in the World", because of some of the things that were said at that rally. I felt immune since I don't do politics as a rule on these blogs. Still, there was food for thought at that rally.

Then today, I watched the interview of Jon Stewart by Rachel Maddow. Much of what Stewart said was repeated during that interview. The entire interview, by the way, will be available on Dr. Maddow's blog this weekend and I plan on watching it.

So what does any of the above have to do with writing? Actually quite a bit to my mind. The tie in was provided to me by W. Somerset Maugham in the book that I am re-reading, "The Summing Up" that I have mentioned before. Many critics both the ones writers encounter in print, and other forms of the media, and those we see in our daily lives such as friends and relatives can be as mean as those on Fox.

Maugham wrote that critics sometimes write criticism "to compensate themselves for humiliations they have suffered in their early youth. Criticism affords them a means of regaining their self-esteem. Because at school, unable to adapt the self to the standards of that narrow world, they has been kicked and cuffed, they will when grown up cuff and kick in their turn in order to assuage their wounded feelings."

At first, I thought that all of the criticism voiced by Stewart and others about being mean and bad spirited had nothing to do with me. When I said something in print in other places other than these blogs, I thought of myself as clever and my writing as witty. But I was wrong. I was being mean just as much as some of the people on Fox.

I agree that I don't think the folks on MSNBC are as mean spirited and play loose with the facts as those on Fox. What I do as far as a critic is concerned, I might be like Maugham states some critics do and feel that I am righting some of the wrongs that were done to me in years past. It is a fine line between criticism and just plain expression of emotional hurt which has no part in these blogs.

In one job that I had years ago, there was an employee who used to go from one fellow employee to another telling them his troubles both on the job and what was happening at home. He wanted to be taken care of by his fellow employees. He wanted sympathy. Somehow he had grown to expect it. That is not what a good writer does. We use our anger to fuel our exploration of ourselves and others but not to ask our readers to take care our our needs. We also don't use our bully pulpit, should we be be so lucky to have one, to gain vengeance on imaginary foes who for the most part don't exist. To make sure we don't fall into this, it is good to exercise mindfulness, awareness. We are all in this world together.

Cycle of Anger

In my journal, I have been writing about my anger about people. Some people make me angry as most people do to everyone. When I am driving at home, I am often mystified by road rage because people will get angry over the most littlest details of someone else's driving. For the most part, I never see who is driving and the source of their anger is and remains a mystery to me. I make surmises that they were mad at their spouses or parents or just got a pink slip at work.

This post is not why I am angry at people but how as writers we deal with emotions in our characters in fiction. I decided to write about an angry person named Adam on my "Zebrareader's Much Ado About Nothing" Blog. I described a middle-aged Korean and why he was so angry.

One time in a writers' editing group, that I may have written about before, I asked another writer why a character wanted to quit her job and get another one. Her changing jobs was essential to the plot of the story. She said it wasn't important. I said if you could not explain the character's motivation the story would fail. All you needed was a sentence or two. She disagreed. I think the same goes for anger. If a character is angry, there has to be a reason for it. If a character in a film played by Clint Eastwood is angry, it can't be because it looks good on the screen. That's bad plot development. The film medium isn't always able to explain motivation although good films managed to do so. The same goes for print fiction.

I did not wake up angry at certain people this morning for no good reason. I had reasons for it. I have a past and a present. They are integrated and the experiences and emotions that make up who I am explain the reasons I am mad at certain people. If I am very sure of myself as a writer and an editor tells me my stuff is not right for his magazine, it would not bother me and I would just send it to someone else. If I am very unsure of myself and it took a year to get the courage to send it out because my mother was always telling me I was no good and my teachers reinforced this I would be very angry. If I am writing a story about a writer who is trying to send his or her stories out this would be important.

I don't think it is necessary to explain with huge blocks of detail on characters' emotions and reasons for being otherwise you put the reader to sleep. That is where reading other people's work comes in. You just get a sense of what keeps you interested and what generally turns you off. It is so important to read. I think, personally, that you should read what is popular now and what was popular in the past. I am reading everything I can get my hands on right now by W. Somerset Maugham. It isn't easy here in Korea but I have managed. I was also able to pick up one of his favorite authors, Charles Dickens. I am going to read "A Christmas Story" again but this time with a pencil. I have been reading current authors too.

Sometimes it is useful to read bad books so you know why they don't work. In every instance of a bad book, I don't like reading about characters who act in such ways that I can't figure out why they do and then they change and then I can't figure out why they change. Even in Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Alfred Conan Doyle, characters are consistent and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson characters in all of the stories remain the same. There are other things I don't like in some other books but those are the most outstanding criticisms.

If a character named Judy is consistently happy and never depressed, some sentence should address why this is so, such as being born and raised in a happy and satisfied family. If by reading a book about a happy character named Judy who turns out to be a serial killer, you need some kind of explanation why Judy turned out to like chopping up her boyfriends such as her family wasn't such a happy and satisfied family and that her father was a ritual satanic worshiper who practiced on his family.

In the popular series, Harry Potter Books, there is an evil character named Lord Voldemort. J. K. Rowland explains as the story progresses through the books why this evil lord is so evil. Characters do not develop in a vacuum. In this case, Lord Voldemort was a poor boy named Tom who was disowned by his father who also rejected his mother. He felt a growing sense of vengeance towards the world that rejected him. He also felt anger towards those who would oppose him including Harry Potter and his parents who Voldemort killed. Potter, on the other hand, felt anger but also felt the love and acceptance of those around him at Hogwarts. He was a gifted wizard too but had a heart willing to accept love.

Part of the magic of creating characters is making them real. Real people are not people who live only on the surface of life. They have likes and dislikes, pasts and presents. They also have emotions and ways of looking at the world. We all develop philosophies. We have hopes and aspirations. We have fears and things that makes us angry. We are not stereotypes. I am a bit overweight and many people relate to me as that. I was at a monastery once for a weekend and one monk could not tell one woman guest apart from me because we were both over-weight although we had thirty years difference in age and she was Hispanic and I was not. He never looked beneath the surface of people or he had a disability that make it impossible for him to do so.

Whenever I create a character, I always make an inventory in my mind as to where that person is from and why he or she is who they are. I may not use all of the material that is in my head but it is there. It makes it easier to keep the plot going or at least I have found that to be true. To go back to poor Judy, she gets caught because she sends notes to a reporter who looks uncannily like her first victim. Her father used to scare her with stories of ghosts as well as satanic stories of possession. The reporter working with the police never gives up and seeks her relentlessly because unknowingly to her he is the brother of that first victim and the identical twin. The brothers look like her father who is dead. She leaves clues because she wants to be caught as she is scared of the ghost of that first victim who is in her mind her father. The story is called "Cycle of Anger". The story would not have worked if motivation was not forthcoming.

There are people who express the opinion that writers would make good detectives. No, they would not. If detail is missing, we make it up. That would not work in a court of law. We make good guesses if we are therapists but I am not convinced we would make good therapists. What we are good at, is writing stories.

Support Group for Writers

I woke up this morning and had a great idea. I think there should be a group of writers who meet together and are writers who really write and send their stuff out and talk to each other for self support. I know there are somewhere but I never found them. I am certainly not going to find them here in Korea, and I have tried. Besides, I am going home soon.

I remember going to a group therapy session for women only awhile back. They were women of all ages which was good and all of us served in the military and had that in common. However, I was the only one that was self-supporting and did not have personal drug or alcohol issues. I come from a family full of people who had those problems so I barely squeaked in on that score. I was also the only one that completed college although many were in the rehabilitation program. Many lived at home and I left home permanently when I was 16 years of age. I think the level of trauma of these brave ladies were tremendous and I was able to overcome mine because my resources were sufficient to help me get through. Theirs were not. I did not belong. They knew it too.

Looking in the Internet, I found a writers' group that was active in the town I lived in. I went to that one. Many of the writers did not write full time. Many of them did not write at all. They just wanted to be writers. Very few of them actually wrote and sent their stuff in. Very few actually had things published except for the few that self-published. When they passed around their books, I was appalled at the ones that needed to be edited.

Then I tried book clubs. I was astonished at the leader who chose the books, that were for the most part, out of print. I was very suspicious she chose the books she had read years ago. Another group was a wine and cheese group for women with their husbands and since I did not have one at the time I felt out of place. When I voiced a suggestion that this book group should consider books by women authors instead of the steady stream of men writers I was told "our husbands would not put up with that."

I think I just had bad karma. I lived in a small town. I have a friend that lives in a large city and is a member of several book clubs that he finds interesting. He is also a member of a memoir writing club. If he did not live 12 hours away, I would join them. Maybe there are few clubs for working writers because most writers that I have known usually are not joiners. When I lived in a Midwestern city, I was a member of a wonderful book club. They exist.

So, what should I do to share the joy and the misery of writing. Then I look up and see this blog. I am doing it. I will continue to look for writers groups. I am returning to that small city. The writers club has collapsed. I would start my own if I live alone but my house is full of people now and I don't know any writers anymore in my town.

One of the advantages of writing is writers do very well alone. In general we like the space if it is populated with just ourselves. On the other hand, it is nice to share the fact that the world may not be ready with our brand of writing or we hit the markets at the wrong time or those brown envelops coming back in the mail can be just one envelop too many. I remember asking the Veterans Administration for help in dealing with writers block. The psychiatrist said no in no uncertain terms. He said the VA does not help with things like that. For a writer, writing is like breathing. I should have asked him why not.

So, until I have a group for dysfunctional writers, and name me one writer who is not dysfunctional, this blog is going to have to be it.

Writing on the Internet

I was reading an article yesterday that a magazine took some recipes from a blog and used them in their magazine without permission and without even giving the author credit. Since, the author thought she did her homework by copyrighting her blog and she was already a published author she demanded a retraction which included an apology and a donation to PEN. The magazine refused and said that anything published on the Internet was up for grabs and that the author should be glad that the magazine did not put someone else's name on it.

All writers steal. But we take ideas and incorporate them into our own and adapt them and make them our own. It is a different matter for a magazine to just steal from a writer and plunk it down in their publication. It is still a rare occurrence. It does happen. I was aware that everything I write on these blogs is gone forever and that is why I don't put original poetry or stories out there on the Internet. I don't feel like giving away my creative efforts.

Poets, don't put your poems on those poetry pages. You have lost them for good. You can't even give them away with your name. They are gone for good. Someone told me that getting a book of poetry published and waiting for a profit is like tossing a penny into the Grand Canyon and waiting to hear it hit bottom. Still, it is never a good idea to give it away so someone else can put their name on it because there are a huge hosts of wannabee writers and poets who would do it. Trust me it has happened to me too.

There was a well known actor who took a screen play and made a movie that was very successful and paid nothing to the screen writer. He thought he could get away with it, but the screen writer was also a well known journalist and knew a very good attorney and he sued and won.

No writer should put his sweat and effort into something and then put it on the Internet. No matter if you can't get it published some other way. Keep it in a drawer and send it out again some other way. The magazine that stole that writer's work was outed and it was a little known magazine. It got an enormous black eye. It did it to another writer and this time it lifted something that was copyrighted the correct way and before it was put on the Internet. Lawyers will get involve this time.

Character's Philosophy

Can the philosophy of our characters in our stories have a philosophy that is different from our own? Can they teach the writer there is something new in the universe? I have discovered yesterday that the answer is yes.

I used to believe that there is one reality and everyone has a different take on it. One character said that reality is different for each of us and not a different version but totally different. Her reality is full of crazy people and crazy notions. It really is that way and not a different way of looking at the world. It is as she sees it for her. I am a spiritual person and see the world as a very spiritual place but it certainly would not be a spiritual place for someone like Richard Dawkins. He sees nothing spiritual about nature, for example, while I see everything in nature as very spiritual and part of the grand spiritual scheme of things. Who is right? My character, Beth, would say we are both correct.

Of course, my son would say there was a third interpretation and that the writer is just plain nuts. Perhaps. However, until Beth came up with this idea, I never considered it. I think she makes a lot of sense especially after the last election in the US. That can be a way of looking at reality and psychiatrists and psychologists will never help with anyone achieving sanity but just living with their demons; but then isn't that what their job should be?

I have noticed that the characters that I help bring about in my stories come to life on their own but not in a scary way. I am always aware that they are made up. It is easy to just follow them and type up what they do. I have read many accounts by other writers who have the same experiences and other writers who say they never do. I have been working with made up people and stories in my head since I was a very small girl. I am comfortable with the process.

I don't have to make up people who do evil things. I meet enough of them in real life. I don't even have to buy books to read about them. They are out there in everyday life. I met my fill of them even here in Korea and I don't keep them in my head. I just use them when I need them in stories and then chuck them out when they are no longer necessary. Evil is necessary. Don't tell that to those who are waiting for the end of these times when the second coming of Jesus will happen and he will get rid of the Devil. We need Satan. We needed Satan to drive us out of Eden so we could populate the world which we did very well. Without Satan, we would not have art and even philosophy.

Well, enough of my philosophy except to say that I never know what my characters will come up with and that is the beauty of writing and the fun. When I sit down to write, I never know what is going to happen or better said what the characters are going to do. That is why I love to write.