Viable Paradise: A Travelogue (Part 4)

(This is all being posted far more slowly than I wanted, and is disrupting the normal flow of writing, both on Parentheticals and on the novel. But I feel like it's important to get this all down in detail, for posterity. I want to be able to come back and read this myself, when the slogging gets tough and the tough just want a cookie and a pat on the head.)

Wednesday morning, the halfway point of the workshop, began like all the others at the ridiculously chirpy hour of 8am. This morning's group critique, which was led by Steve Gould and Debra Doyle, had me in the hot seat. Luckily, having been brillo'd by professionals over the previous two days, I was feeling much humbler and less attached. And actually there were some incredibly helpful things said. I won't go into all the specific details, but two overarching things stood out:

Most everyone agreed that in these opening chapters there was too much exposition and not enough tension--they wanted more action, less back story. It finally became clear to me that the real problem with these opening chapters is that, well, I wrote them first. And when I first started writing I was feeling my way through the characters and the world, so that's what I wrote down, in that overly detailed "let me explain" kind of writing. But given the observations of previous lectures and collegiums, what I now know is that I only need to provide details as the reader needs them, and not overdo it on the worldbuilding expositon. I need to subscribe to the "iceberg principle" and have most of the worldbuilding below the surface of the story, with only a few things showing above the surface, just enough for the reader to sense the larger and more complex world beneath. A few details, carefully chosen, and the rest in my head or in my notes, not in the story. ("Three points define a plane; three details--as long as they’re the right ones--define a room.") And if I need more exposition, I can always sugarcoat it with lots of action and tension to make it go down the reader's throat more easily.

I also need to be clearer up front about character goals and the ways they conflict, and about what makes this particular prophecy story different from all other prophecy stories. *I* know that one of my main themes is "things are not always as they seem", but a reader sure isn't able to tell that from these first few chapters. I need to bring that right up front. This dovetails with both Teresa's and Bear's comments that I need to find that uniqueness, that hook, and make it obvious right from the start. ("This ain't yo momma's prophecy story…!")

I emerged from the group critique (mostly) inspired and feeling like I wanted to jump right into writing (or rewriting, as the case may be), but instead it was time for another lecture. This time there was only one lecture instead of two, and up today was Laura Mixon.

I'm sad I never really got any critique time with Laura. She wasn't in any of the group critiques I had, and I never did get up the gumption to ask her for a non-scheduled one-on-one. Luckily I did get a brief fangirl moment with her later in the day, and I spent some really great social time with her Friday night, but more on that later.

Laura's lecture was on "The Care And Feeding of Your Beast", i.e. your inner writer, your muse, that deep place from which true story flows. I've written obliquely on this topic before, but Laura's take on it was really interesting. I think I took more notes during Laura's lecture than most others, and since I find it hard to edit the notes down, here are more than just a few nuggets:

-As a writer you are striking a balance between your analytical higher brain (your inner editor) and your non-verbal--and even sometimes non-mammalian--brain (your beast). What you write speaks to the reader's two brains as well. Stories must satisfy on both levels.
-Technique and craft are only the first level, the analytical level--and thus important but not sufficient.
-There needs to be an inner collaboration between the inner editor and the beast. The beast has no voice without the editor.
-You cannot control or command your beast, but you can listen to it and figure out what it is interested in. Too much info from the beast can always be pruned and shaped by the editor once it's out.
-In dry times, doing some other kind of non-verbal creativity (e.g. painting!) helps bring the beast back into communication
-Speaking things out loud literally helps us get in touch with our beasts (more so than just thinking about things), because auditory processing goes back to the earlier, more primitive brain. Music and pacing around the room help too, for the same reason.
-Routine can be your friend (Butt In Chair time!) and help you train the beast to show up on cue.
-Play 20 questions with your beast: ask it simple, declarative yes or no questions about a character or plot point.
-Each scene should either advance plot, illuminate character, provide sensory detail, or elucidate the theme (of course you can do several or all of these in a scene as well for maximum efficiency).
-Don't underestimate the power of a single, clean idea.
-Keep momentum going--finishing is important. Give yourself permission to write crap. Don't look down, just keep going.
-FINISH THE BOOK before revising. Avoid epicyclic revisions.
-There are four stages of learning: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. Those of us at VP generally leave somewhere between stages 2 and 3.
(I forgot to say this before but during Tuesday's collegium, one of the things that was said during a discussion of slush and how terrible most of it was, was that all of us at VP were among the top "6-8%" of the slush pile, a statement that nicely warmed the heart cockles of those of us hearing it--at least those of us who were not so neurotic as to immediately reject the praise out of hand as mere instructorly kiss-up to the paying students. And no, I'm not that cynical.)

After Laura's lecture there was another slot for one-on-one sessions, but I didn't have one. So it was free time for me until our group trip to The Bite in Menemsha for a late lunch. I tried to get started on my homework story, but mostly noodled around without too much success and wound up socializing with my roomies instead (I kept telling myself that socializing and bonding with my fellow writers was as important a professional activity as practicing more writer tricks). Then it was time to put on our new green VPXI t-shirts (which we'd been given the night before), pile into cars and head out to The Bite, a little seafood shack that supposedly had the best fried seafood on the island. You don't have to tell me twice to go eat delicious fried food! (The instructors had told us gravely how expensive lunch was going to be, and emphasized that we didn't have to go if we didn't want to--but "expensive" turned out to be roughly $10 lunches, which we Californians sneered at.)

Dorothy, Kim and I went with the downstairs boys (Mark and Yeff) in Yeff's car, and had a fun drive all around the Island to Menemsha. Right up front the boys decided not to follow everyone else, caravan style, but rather to chart our own, supposedly quicker course to Menemsha by following the map. Much to our delight we found that a car full of instructors, driven by Steve Gould, was following us, so we felt vindicated in our adventurousness. Hilarity briefly ensued when at one point Steve took a turn we didn't, and we pulled over in a panic to consult the map, wondering if we'd misread it. Just as we got back on the road, though, having assured ourselves that we were indeed still heading in the right direction, Steve's car flashed past us and we wound up following him the rest of the way.

Other than my drive from the airport to the Island Inn, and our brief jellyfish walk the night before, this was really the first time I'd seen much of the island, and it was, not surprisingly, beautiful. Much of the drive was more woodsy than beachy, with lots of undergrowth amongst the thin-trunked trees, and gorgeous hand-laid stone walls along the sides of the road. (I regret not having taken more pictures of those walls--they fascinate me in their intricate, mortar-less construction.) The leaves, sadly, were barely beginning to turn--I had expected much more color, but the season was starting later than usual this year, apparently. Still, it was lovely, and completely unlike tawny brown California (or any place else I've ever been, actually).

The Bite, when we got there, truly was a little seafood shack on the edge of a road leading up to a beach. Apparently it was a touristy beach, because there were lots of little gift stores and restaurants scattered along the road nearby. They had a little tripod and telescope out front with a hand-lettered cardboard sign taped to it that said "Welcome Martha's Vineyard Science Fiction Association 2007". There were also a little cardboard cut out of an alien and a flying saucer on top of the sign. Very cute. So all of us in our matching green t-shirts stood in line to order our fried scallops, shrimp, clams, popcorn chicken, or what have you.

But as I got close enough to read the menu, written in chalk on a rectangular black board leaning casually against the side of the shack, something indescribably exciting caught my eye: Quahog chowder. That's right! My distracted brain had forgotten that I was on the East Coast, home of my absolute favorite kind of soup (and one of my favorite food items period--I could wax rhapsodic about clam chowder and how I love it but I am already overwhelming this story with detail, so I will refrain for now). So much as I would have been happy with any of the plethora of excellent fried food choices, for me there was now only one clear course of action: eat clam chowder. Lots of clam chowder. They had three sizes: cup, pint and quart. I briefly considered ordering a pint and also getting some fried scallops, but then the, ahem, beast side of my brain said "hell no! All clam chowder, all the time!" So I ordered a quart. The man who gave it to me asked, "do you want some extra cups with that?" He was assuming, I think, that the quart was meant to be shared amongst several people. I told him no, but he asked me again--I guess he found it hard to believe that someone would want to eat the whole thing by themselves. But I did, oh how I did. (After all, in my family we joke that our motto is "too much is just enough".)

And faithful readers, let me just say this: it was extraordinary clam chowder. Creamy, rich broth, perfectly cooked potatoes, tender toothsome clams. Oh so delicious. But as I sat on the blue painted picnic table out front with my fellow writers, I began to be mocked for the very ambitiousness of ordering a quart of clam chowder for lunch. Never one to shy from a challenge, I (somewhat stupidly) announced that I had every intention of eating the whole damn quart, right there and then. No, I would not take the leftovers back to my room. The heckling turned challenging: dares were made, and bets were placed.

Of course I finished it. (Sometimes dares *do* really work on me.)

I was really really full though, so after collecting my money (I made $6, nearly enough to pay for the chowder) I decided to go for a digestive stroll down to the beach. Mark came with me, and we had a nice stroll and chat and rock-finding expedition until our car-mates came to find us so we could head back. On the way back to the car though, we passed a little gifty shack that looked fun, and did a brief detour through. I found a little metal frog statue that appealed to me, and which cost almost exactly the amount of my chowder winnings, so I bought it--both to remind me of that day and to be a sort of writing totem for my desk (frogs being a sign of fertility and creativity in the Zuni culture whose fetishes I casually collect). Then we piled into the car and headed back to the Inn, with brief stops to indulge me in photo-taking, and a stop at the grocery store and the "Package Store" (liquor store) for food and party supplies.

Once we got back to the Inn, there wasn't much time before dinner, but I dutifully tried to do some homework. Dinner was leftovers (and go figure, I wasn't all that hungry so that was fine) and then after dinner, people hung around avoiding their homework and chatting. I decided to do some procrastination of my own and started surveying people about their favorite outrageous curse words (my main character was turning out to be a nasty, foul-mouthed Air Force pilot, and I needed some good swearing samples). Jim MacDonald, with his military background, was incredibly helpful, but the other instructors as well as my fellow students proved to be no slouches at the art of cursing either. I certainly got over any lingering embarrassment or prudishness after the first few examples--I just told myself I was an anthropologist gathering data. (I did wind up incorporating a lot of the suggestions into my story, though--thanks everyone, I couldn't have done it without you!)

Eventually it was time to stop procrastinating and go do the writing. Dorothy was happily reading her book (since her attitude on homework assignments at VP was "make me"), but Kim and Mark and Jeff and I sat around writing and reading bits to each other from time to time. It was some of the most companionable writing I've ever done--we were all certainly focused on our own writing, but also gave encouragement and on-the-spot suggestions to each other as we went. A definite change of pace from the usual writerly solitude, and extroverted me enjoyed it.

We were getting kind of tired around 11:30 or midnight, when suddenly there was a commotion in the hallway. A somewhat tipsy Bear was gathering up all us homework-blurred writers and telling us to come down the common room for a special reading: The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr. Earbrass Writes A Novel, by Edward Gorey ("the only TRUE depiction of the literary life"). It was hilarious. It was true. It was Elizabeth Bear at her dramatic best. Lessons to live by. Then after that welcome break it was back to writing.

Eventually, it got to be around 2:30am, and only Yeff and I were left in the living room of Room 50, and I just couldn't cudgel any more prose out of my brain (no matter how foul mouthed). So I gave up on the idea of actually finishing the story, and finally went to bed.

Stay tuned for the next installment, in which homework is turned in, more mindblowing lectures are absorbed, additional incredible writerly conversation is indulged in, and Richard III rocks the house.