David Whitley’s Thoughts on the Unreal

For me, the most ethereal faerie enchantments have just as much charm as a solid piece of sci-fi hardware. I love the unreal: the power, and wonder, and delight of worlds where nothing can be taken for granted, and everything is new.

The only question is...why?

What is it about fantasy that is so beguiling? I mean, one of the cardinal rules of fiction is supposed to be the possibility for the audience to identify, to sympathise with the characters and recognise their own lives. In Poetics, Aristotle suggested that the purpose of fiction was to purge emotions, to let us experience all the joy and grief that, were it real life, might otherwise overwhelm us. (Whitley’s article)

What do you think?  Why do you love the unreal in fantasy?

The Seven Deaths of Malcolm Reynolds

For Jake, who comes up with the hardest writing prompts.  (For those of you wondering, Malcolm Reynolds is the name of the captain played by Nathan Fillion on the fan-favorite Firefly show.  If you don't know that, you probably won't get virtually anything that follows.  And even if you do, no guarantees.  *smirk*

THE SEVEN DEATHS OF MALCOLM REYNOLDS

      I never should have let her go, Captain Reynolds thought to himself. 

The most important part of the story

John Truby, legendary Hollywood script doctor, utters this provocative quip:  “What you choose to write about is far more important than any decision you make about how you write it.”

I’ve been chewing on this question.  As someone most interested in writing “genre” fiction (as in fantasy and science fiction), I think his point is

An unpublished author has to wade through cynical editors and jaded readers; if he wants to get his book published and purchased, he has to convince them the investment will be worth it.  If the author is trying to do that on the basis of high-quality writing alone, that’s very hard to do without the experience of actually reading it.  But if the he has a unique and interesting subject about which to write, then he’s got a head start on getting people to read long enough to discern his quality.

The very best stories have both:  an excellent subject that has draw of its own, and then a skilled author executes that story with artful prose and an elegant structure.

Consider the other cases:  a story has a good idea but poor execution.  The better the idea, the more I’m willing to put up with bad execution (Chronicles of Riddick).  If I have a dumb idea, I don’t care how well it’s done, I can’t force myself to slog through it for the sake of the artistic beauty (Twilight).

Here’s my operating principle I’m getting from all this:  do both well, but realize that a great subject buys you time for every other art of fiction.  Make sure your idea sizzles before refining the recipe.

Wrestling with titans

My writing muse is burned out.  I left it somewhere in January, on the hard road to re-visioning Cascade Hills and our place in Salem.  Writing is for me a creative and spiritual exercise, and it draws from the same well from which I draw inspiration for meeting challenges in church planting.  Not all church planting work draws from this well--but the last six months has been focused on this kind of work.

We have emerged from this time of re-visioning with a renewed sense of God's calling and a clear idea of some concrete actions we can take to embody that calling.

Melissa and I have taken some time off to rest our weary bodies and minds, and after a few days of rest and family time, I have wandered back to the writing workslate and found myself with a very sore and tired creative spirit.  No words come to fill the page with wonders.  I would worry more, but I know that this part of me needs healing and rest like everything else.

As I wait patiently for that rest and peace to do its work, I find myself reviewing some large writing projects that have sat on the back burner for half a year or more now and I can feel the approach of bellows-wind on a bed of embers.  There is some good stuff here, and I anticipate the time in the next six months when I might have some creative energy to spare on these projects.

One of the things I ran across was some thinking I'd done in the last couple of years on the themes which most concern me when I think of the stories I most want to write.  Allow me to share these "big themes" with you in lieu of anything actually creative:

1. Eschatology: what is the goal of everything? Toward what is everything moving? And how are we getting there? What are the dangers along the way? What would a glimpse of that goal look like? How can you get behind a telos (end) without comprehending it fully?
2. Epistemology: how do we know what we know? What must we know? What knowledge must we avoid at all costs? What is the meaning of wisdom, and how do we recognize it when we see it? (Especially with reference to Human Unity below) How much does culture shape what we know or how we gain knowledge and wisdom, how we put it into practice? Unpacking (and smacking down) postmodernism is a major goal for me here.
3. Divine Judgment: from what kind of perspective is the end of the world a good, necessary thing? The apocalypse is interesting, provocative why? How can you hold a love for marred creation and the need for an end in tension?
4. Redemptive Violence: when is violence justified? Okay, what actually is violence? What place does violence play in the divine-human relationship, especially with reference to Divine Judgment, above? Is violence always bad, or a necessary corollary of evil? Can a good man use violence, and how does this affect him? There a serious questions for me here in the pacifism vs. redemptive violence debate.
5. Human Unity: how can two culturally diverse people be made one (i.e., toward the eschaton)? What can they give up without ceasing to be who they are? What must they not give up? How does tolerance relate to a radical call to self-emptying? How should nations, peoples, cultures relate to the outsider? When is it okay (or necessary) to demand that a culture change?
6. Heroism, Ethics, Duty: What is a true hero, and how is he made? How are difficult decisions made in impossible situations? Not merely self-sacrifice but self-surrender for a worthy greater good? What are the hero-imposters and how do they masquerade as true heroism? Is true heroism timeless? And its converse, what is cowardice, inhumanity, vice, dereliction of duty?

If you were to name the big themes in the stories you read and write, what would they be?  What are the titans you wrestle with?

Mr. Disney's Good Day: a modern parable

Mr. Disney decided to leave his newly-built Magic Kingdom for a while and walk about the streets of Anaheim. During his walk, he chanced upon a poorer neighborhood. At the center of that neighborhood he found a broken-down city park, complete with rusty old playground equipment and brown tufts of grass studding what might have once been a baseball diamond. A few children of varying ages played here despite the humble offerings of the park.

Filled with compassion, Mr. Disney called out to them from the center of the park, "Children! I have here seven tickets, one for each of you, that will grant you admission to the happiest place on earth! In fact, we can go there right now, if you'll follow me. It is only a short walk from here."

The children wondered at the strange man in a business suit who had invaded their spartan territory. Six children walked up to him and accepted a ticket, while the seventh remained behind--after all, who was this man, and why should he be giving out tickets to perfect strangers?

Six children followed Mr. Disney out of the park and into the city streets toward the Magic Kingdom. One child stayed behind at the first crosswalk, having met another playmate from another neighborhood. They went off together to play kick the can.

Five children pursued Mr. Disney through old neighborhoods. At one point along the way, Mr. Disney stopped to point at a tall white mountain rising from the center of the Kingdom, which he called The Matterhorn. None of the children knew what a Matterhorn was, but it certainly looked exciting. But while the other children had been looking at the Matterhorn, one of the children looked down instead and noticed that another child carried a half-eaten chocolate bar in his coat pocket. When the other child refused to share it, the hungry child became angry and the two began to argue. Mr. Disney said, "Children, if you are to accompany me to the happiest place on earth, you must get along." The hungry child, embarrassed at the scolding, went off to sulk, convincing himself that Mr. Disney meant him to go hungry. The other child stomped off in the opposite direction, thinking to himself that Mr. Disney meant him to share his only chocolate bar which he had bought with his own money.

Only three children remained as the little group left the world of their neighborhood behind altogether, coming to a busy intersection which marked the boundary between the neighborhood and the larger city. Mr. Disney said to them, "Be careful, children. Stay together now, and we'll all cross safely. The happiest place on earth is only two blocks away."

One of the children eyed the busy street and decided it was too much for him, so he turned around to go home.

Two children walked the rest of the way toward the entrance to Mr. Disney's Magic Kingdom, gasping in surprise as they caught glimpses of the fantastic sights which awaited them. They could hear the sound of music playing beyond the great stone wall which divided the Magic Kingdom from the rest of the city. Laughter too intermingled with the music, and the smells of popcorn, fresh-baked pastries, and caramel floated tantalizingly on the breeze.

At last they came before the massive pavilions that served to welcome guest's into Mr. Disney's Magic Kingdom. Thousands were gathered outside, waiting to purchase tickets. Mr. Disney walked the two children to the front of the line and instructed them to show their tickets to the man at the gate. But one of the children balked. "I don't want to go in here, I want to see the Matterhorn!" Mr. Disney answered, "Child, this is the way to the Matterhorn, and a thousand other wonderful things." But the child refused, begging to go through a side door (which Mr. Disney knew to lead into a dangerous area meant for mechanics and technicians). At last, the child folded her little arms and scowled at the pavilions which barred her way, while the seventh and last child showed his ticket and quietly entered.

Past the Well of Igne: Original fiction by Jason Campbell

All around them, thunder crashed relentlessly in a gloom-shrouded sky. Two men sat one behind the other in the bow of a boat of willow wood. Beneath its prow swirled a river of dark, surging waters here and there pocked with void-like whirlpools filled with stars. The men strained to remain upright as the boat twisted and rocked beneath them. A fierce wind rushed past, their dun-colored cloaks snapping behind them like pennants. Rorgan sat closest to the prow and watched their progress upon that strange river, his eyes the eyes of an experienced mariner. The other man, whose name was Cambur, sat agape, his face the soul of wonder as he watched the sights which flashed by.

Suddenly, the mariner thrust a slender paddle into the raging torrent and began furiously working their boat toward a great rift in the river. At first, the current fought them, slapping away the approach of the boat as if it were no more than a wandering bottlefly. After straining at stroke after stroke, Cambur felt their boat fall forward a little, as if some subtle boundary in the current had been passed. Quickly the mood of the river shifted, and now they were drawn hungrily toward the cataract which yawned before them.

Still Rorgan worked his paddle as they approached the churning hole in the river. Their boat pitched forward; steeper and steeper climbed the walls of water around them until the roar became thunder incarnate and shook them to their core. Cambur and Rorgan were flung together out of the boat and into the torrent, the darkness consuming them in ten thousand vermillion lances.

The rift shattered behind them. The two men knelt weakly upon the smooth stone beneath them. Strands of vermillion raced about the room, the dying echoes of their wondrous journey. Their clothes contained no trace of moisture.

For long moments, Cambur sat speechless, trying to catch his breath. Rorgan had stood, waiting for the young man to come to his senses. At last, the youth looked up at him. His enthusiasm had renewed itself in his face, replacing the fear with exultation. Standing unsteadily, Cambur said "How my mind shivers at that experience! It was like dancing on the tendrils of roaring flame! Never have I seen such sights! I have always known that you are master of strange worlds, that the speech of the rocks and stars is known to you, but I did not know into what strange dreams knowledge may carry you!"

Rorgan shook his head and smiled, "You mistake what you have seen. It seems to you that by command and artifice that I travel the ways between worlds, that somehow through the study of great books I have learnt some secret which grants me power. It is rather the opposite--that which I learn upends me into greater mystery, and though I gain knowledge, it is knowledge which provokes awe rather than bestows power."

"But, how can this be?" asked Cambur, confusion darkening his joy. "At your will you can pry open the barriers between worlds! With a wave of your hand, you call forth a rift and step into it, riding it like some master horseman astride his stallion!"

Rorgan's face grew stern in the dim light. "You speak from ignorance, so I shall not chasten you--but know that your words are foolish and lusty. When we step inside a rift and ride it, I have precisely the same fear as you, though my knowledge is by far the greater. When you follow me into the rift, you trust me to know that it is safe, that my knowledge will preserve you. Moments ago, when we passed by the Well of Igne in all its darkening horrors, you saw only the flashing of bleak skies rushing past and vague forms which swirled in the mist and were gone. You knew nothing of the fate which might have overtaken us both, had the Current of Zin carried us instead into the malign borderlands of Igne. You trusted that I knew the way, despite the fleeting but fearsome sights.

"It may surprise you to hear that such journeys are much the same for me. When we enter a rift, I do so by following faithfully the paths trodden before me by my master, trusting that he had rightly learnt the way from his master, and so on through the passing of ages to the advent of our Lord, who was first to travel these ways and called us to follow him. Should you follow the threads of my knowledge, you would discover the fact of which I am continuously and fearfully aware: I know nothing save this First Master, and trust in the ways which he made for my fathers. I do not so much know the way, as I know and trust the Way-Maker. I enter the rift knowing the greater danger, but also following behind the greater master. Know this Cambur: it is faith, rather than knowledge, which bears us on."

The fantasy genre for non-readers

Few things can brighten up a grim morning in a Scottish seaside resort besieged by an Atlantic storm. Yet while sheltering in a bookshop from the bullet rain and ferocious winds, I had a moment of sun-drenched revelation that took me a world - or worlds - away. (read more)

Mark Chadbourn (a blogger and writer I follow) was recently published in the Daily Telegraph, talking about his discovery of Lord of the Rings as a young man and about how and why fantasy has become the largest genre in publishing.

Really? A paper notebook? What's the big deal?

I used to think I was allergic to trendy.  In high school, I refused to wear jeans because "everybody was wearing them."  I refused to watch Titanic because "everybody was talking about it."  The thought of doing something because it was cool or "in" just made me puke.

Now I realize that I'm only allergic to certain trends.  The nerdy ones?  I'm a sucker for 'em, probably for the reason they became trends in the first place.  Google?  Gmail?  Blog?  iPhone?  They had me at hello.

And now I am a sucker for another obscure trend.  A buddy of mine fell first.  I wondered what the big deal was, I really did.  But then curiosity got the better of me.

I tried to fight it, tried to hold out.  I kept passing by the racks at Borders, Powell's, other places, wondering what all these huge racks of journals were all about.  Then I started seeing articles on Lifehack.org about these same journals:  the legendary, world-famous Moleskine notebook.

Used a Borders coupon today to get one on the cheap (couldn't bring myself to pay $18 for a 240 page ruled notebook), but once I got that baby home, I never looked back.  I love my new Moleskine.  And I'm a trendy fool who doesn't care who knows it.

A Wondrous Felicity of Language: A Sample of Prose Artistry from Smith's Short Fiction

I am coming to understand more of why I enjoy certain works of fantasy more than others, and in particular, why I find very little satisfaction in works written after, say, 1980. Much of this seems to stem from a certain habit of language (or perhaps deliberate antiquarianism in the pens of authors who wrote in the 50's, 60's, and 70's.) The sweet spot for fantastic language seems to have been 1890-1930, when the main influences on modern works of fantasy were in their heyday. These were the years of George Macdonald, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard--and just before the advent of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Jack Vance. I am learning that my interest in fantasy is equally concerned with the beauty of the prose and language itself as it is with the communication and artistry of the story in its larger structures. Interesting ideas and wonderful philosophy of character are not enough to sustain my attentions; a work must also have beauty in its smallest parts.

In metaphorical fashion, I got out my magnifying glass and went over a sample of text from one of these masters of language, and I found myself quickly astonished at the range of vocabulary and prose artistry employed by such an author. Consider these excerpts from culled from a single story of Clark Ashton Smith, A Tale of Satampra Zeiros:

...a habit of mind both agile and adroit.

...and the breaking of the adamantine box of Acromi, in which were all the medallions of an early dynasty of Hyperborean kings...

...we sold them at a dire sacrifice to the captain of a barbarian vessel from remote Lemuria...

We made use of a rare and mordant acid...

...but I must not linger too long and too garrulously by the way

...amid heroic memories and the high glamor of valiant or sleightful deeds.

In our occupation, as in all others, the vicissitudes of fortune are oftentimes to be reckoned with...

...the goddess Chance is not always prodigal of her favors.

...had found ourselves in a condition of pecuniary depletion

People had become accursedly chary of their jewels and other valuables...

...guards had grown more vigilant or less somnolent...

...all this that I may not seem in any wise vainglorious.

...will lend a new and more expeditious force to our spent limbs, and our toilworn fingers."

..."will ennoble our thoughts, will inspire and illuminate our minds, and perchance will reveal to us...

The darkness and dubiety of our future ways became illumined as by the light of rosy cressets...

Anon, there came to me an inspiration.

A day's journey from this tiresome town, a pleasant sojourn in the country, an afternoon or forenoon of archaeological research...

...all mortal beings who should dare to tarry within its environs.

...there lies entire and undespoiled as of yore the rich treasure of olden monarchs...

...that the fanes have still their golden altar-vessels and furnishings...

...the sun had ascended far upon the azure acclivity of the heavens when we left the gates...

At a single step, we passed from all human ken...

...they were interwoven by the endless labyrinthine volumes...

The flowers were unwholesomely large, their petals bore a lethal pallor or a sanguinary scarlet; and their perfumes were overpoweringly sweet or fetid.

A few sips of the ardent liquor had already served to lighten more than once the tedium of our journey; and now it was to stand us in good stead. Each of us drank a liberal draught, and presently the jungle became less awesome...

...between the boughs and boles the wan pillars of shadowy porticoes...

...for it was builded of a dark basaltic stone heavily encrusted with lichens that seemed of a coeval antiquity.

...have sometimes been seen to make obeisance and have been heard to howl or whine their inarticulate prayers.

The temple, like the other buildings, was in a state of well-nigh perfect preservation: the only signs of decay were in the carven lintel of the door, which had crumbled and splintered away in several places. The door itself, wrought of a swarthy bronze all overgreened by time, stood slightly a-jar.

Surmising that strength might be required to force open the verdigris-covered door...

...in particular we noticed the unfamiliar fetor I have spoken of previously...

...filled with a sort of viscous and semi-liquescent substance, quite opaque and of a sooty color. It was from this that the odor came—an odor which, though unsurpassably foul, was nevertheless not an odor of putrefaction, but resembled rather the smell of some vile and unclean creature of the marshes. The odor was almost beyond endurance, and we were about to turn away when we perceived a slight ebullition of the surface, as if the sooty liquid were being agitated from within by some submerged animal or other entity. This ebullition increased rapidly, the center swelled as if with the action of some powerful yeast, and we watched in utter horror, while an uncouth amorphous head with dull and bulging eyes arose gradually on an ever-lengthening neck, and stared us in the face with primordial malignity. Then two arms—if one could call them arms—likewise arose inch by inch, and we saw that the thing was not, as we had thought, a creature immersed in the liquid, but that the liquid itself had put forth this hideous neck and head, and was now forming these damnable arms, that groped toward us with tentacle-like appendages in lieu of claws or hands!

...taking as it reached the floor an undulant ophidian form which immediately developed more than a dozen short legs.

What unimaginable horror of protoplastic life, what loathly spawn of the primordial slime had come forth to confront us, we did not pause to consider or conjecture. The monstrosity was too awful to permit of even a brief contemplation; also, its intentions were too plainly hostile, and it gave evidence of anthropophagic inclinations; for it slithered toward us with an unbelievable speed and celerity of motion, opening as it came a toothless mouth of amazing capacity.

...like a torrent that descends a long declivity, our flagging limbs were miraculously re-animated, and we plunged from the betraying light of the by-road into the pathless jungle, hoping to evade our pursuer in the labyrinth of boles and vines and gigantic leaves. We stumbled over roots and fallen trees, we tore our raiment and lacerated our skins on the savage brambles, we collided in the gloom with huge trunks and limber saplings that bent before us, we heard the hissing of tree-snakes that spat their venom at us from the boughs above, and the grunting or howling of unseen animals when we trod upon them in our precipitate flight. But we no longer dared to stop or look behind.

We must have continued our headlong peregrinations for hours.

But its final rays, when it sank, were all that saved us from a noisome marsh with mounds and hassocks of bog-concealing grass, amid whose perilous environs and along whose mephitic rim we were compelled to run without pause or hesitation or time to choose our footing, with our damnable pursuer dogging every step.

Far-off and wan, a glimmering twilight grew among the trees—a foreomening of the hidden morn.

...he returned my valediction and climbed into the great bronze basin, which alone could now afford a moment's concealment in the bareness of the fane.

...unlike anything I have ever touched, it was indescribably viscid and slimy and cold...

Not only am I unable to employ such words at will into a story of my own creation, but I am not entirely sure of what some of them mean. But how they add to the atmosphere and beauty of the thing--such a command of words! For a man with only five years of formal education, Clark Ashton Smith had a vocabulary which defies belief. At this point, I am loathe to mention that he also had a similar mastery of French and other languages, such that he was able to effectively translate fantastic poetry into his native tongue.

Lofty marks for an aspiring writer. Good thing for me that reading Smith, Lovecraft, Dunsany, Macdonald, and the other masters is nothing save sheer pleasure...

Cross-posted to Fantastic Fictions.

Excerpt from the Spark Notes for the Communion Mythos

I realized recently that a bunch of the Spark Notes for literature are available free online. They've got a decent collection of interesting reads for science fiction and fantasy lovers:

• Dune
• Fellowship of the Ring
• Two Towers
• Return of the King
• Harry Potter (various)
• 1984
• Childhood's End

As I was thinking through some of the things I want to do in my writings, I found it helpful to look through the various sections of the Spark Notes: context (helping you understand the author and the literary world he or she wrote within), plot summaries, themes, motifs and symbols, and character analysis. The one on Dune is very interesting, thorough, and helpful. The whole process of reading through all of this has been helping me understand how to write a story using the Snowflake Method. Go, free Spark Notes!

Oh, and I came across this interesting tidbit that I thought you might enjoy from the "Context" section of a forthcoming Spark Notes for the first book of the Communion Mythos, the Last Day of Kinsarra:

R. Edward Campbell was born in Salem, Oregon in 1974. After receiving a B. S. in computer engineering in 1998, he worked for four years for a startup software company in technical services and product management. Returning to school in 2002, he received a M. A. in theology from Austin Graduate School of Theology in 2004. He started the Cascade Hills Church of Christ in 2005, during which he began writing The Last Day of Kinsarra, the first of the Communion Sagas. During the early 2000's, Campbell published short fiction and novels as well as works in theology. Campbell is known for mythic tales written in a vintage prose style, often massive in scale. His stories often explore fundamental themes of humanity and evil, power, mystery, truth, and the sources of knowledge. Campbell's fiction represent a return to the central wonder of fantasy, leaving aside his contemporaries' tendency to over-realize the tropes that have become mainstream in the fantasy genre; Campbell instead prefers to explore in new ways the awe and wonder inspired by myth, fairy tale, and classic fantasy.

Although Campbell is a minister and many of his works contain themes drawn from Christian theology, he avoids allegory or sharp-edged dogmatism in his fiction. He is known for stylistically rich works that engage seriously with philosophical themes. He favors mixed narratives and storytelling methods for his elaborate plots, drawing on intricate characters and a panoply of vividly realized settings. While many of his contemporaries revel in the dystopian nihilism of dark, urban fantasy or busy themselves with the construction of elaborate and self-indulgent epics in quasi-historical tone, Campbell strives to uncover beauty and wonder in the simply human: love, friendship, faith, community, hope.

The collected novels of the Communion Mythos is his most ambitious project to date, a sprawling narrative following dozens of characters across hundreds of worlds. The novels employ multiple apocalyptic scenarios and a desperate race to stop a world-eating evil. Campbell creates sui generis: this is no Tolkien derivative fantasy, or quite derivative of anything else; he crafts wholly unique worlds and populates them with wondrous creatures and peoples, complex cultures with rich histories and religious traditions. These worlds and cultures are not the sociological experimentation typical to science fiction, nor are they the symbols of easily identifiable allegory; rather, Campbell paints them to astonish, to horrify, to awe. The worlds themselves and the remarkable characters that explore them are the central conceit of the Communion series; after seeing a glimpse of their strange beauty, we fear for their destruction and long for their deliverance.

Sleepy NaNo

Okay, so I came out of the starting blocks with NaNo pretty well, but then a six-day trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas shut me down for a while.

The good news is, I only have to write 4,220 words every day for the next ten days to win.

Oh, except tomorrow doesn't count, since I'll be too turkey-groggy for much keyboarding. I'd re-calculate my word count again for you, but then you'd have nothing to do while waiting for your turkey to thaw.

For those few who continue the NaNo nonsense, keep up the great work!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Out of the starting blocks with NaNoWriMo

I made it through day one of NaNo, are you proud of me? Okay, so I have a long way to go. The endurance required to pump one of these 50,000 word novels out in 30 days is mind-boggling. But it's just too fun!

Unfortunately, several friends of mine were also weak enough to fall prey to this supreme temptation of the fall season. One of them asked, any advice for the virgin NaNo-er? Here was my response:

Two words. Fire. Hose.

This project is about producing text any way you can. Here’s how my years doing NaNo went.

First year, started Nov 1 with an outline and a set of characters, all the way through the last chapter. Good story idea, started pounding on it confidently. Gave up at 15,000 words. Nearly all of the text was complete garbage. Sometime I'll show it to you just to make you feel better about your own writing skill. Seriously, don't get despressed just yet.

Second year, abandoned the idea of writing an actual novel and just used the word count as a whip to keep me active. Absolutely the best 32,000 words I’d ever produced to that point. I did have a vague idea for a Middle-Earth-sized storyline (like as in Lord of the Rings + Hobbit + Children of Hurin + Silmarillion sized), but I didn’t have anything like an outline or a clear story I wanted to tell. After just pumping out text in random scenes and sequences, I was in essence testing my ideas, rolling text out on the page and saying, nope, that’s not it, nope, that’s not it, hey that’s kind of cool. 32,000 words later, I had three very well developed character ideas I’m still working with, a massively developed world with tons of actionable cool ideas, and three or four places to begin actual novels. I was really pleased with last year, though I never made the 50,000 word mark.

This year, I’m continuing the tradition with a little more focus. I’m going to try to write more complete scenes if I can, but if not, I’ll still work with fragments. Same sprawling world.

All in all, the main advice is not to worry about producing quality. Just produce. No spell check. No polishing. No searching for the right adjective or metaphor or name (this one is aimed directly at my head). After 15,000 words, things will start to look up…

Heck, Dwayne his first year wrote 10,000 words of Amish pseudo-autobiography… If what we've written counts, anything you produce will…

May the breakneck writing begin!

Awright you knuckleheads, who's in?

In a few hours from the time stamp of this post, that ol' reckless adventure or the National Novel Writing Month will start again.

I am completely and arbitrarily deciding as of this moment to throw my hat into the ring. I reserve the right at any moment to climb over the ropes and retrieve it, replace it sheepishly on my head, and excuse myself.

The first year of NaNo, I managed 15,000 or so words. The second year, I made it to over 30,000. If I keep up this trend, I could blow the doors off the thing and actually "win" NaNo, whatever that means.

What am I going to write? I learned last year that the best use of my NaNo time is to just keep pouring out text. No pre-planned stuff, no working from an outline, just a massive firehose of fantasy text generally pointed in the same direction. Yes, I know it won't make a coherent novel. Yes, I know it won't really be a finished work with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Very postmodern.

Besides, that will give me an excuse to get out of NaNo what I need most in my writing. Practice. Orson Scott Card says that if you write 1,000,000 words, it is impossible not to get published. So arbitrary word count, here I come. Who's with me?

A group writing project

Last night at Men's Bible Study, Tim confessed to having some troubles sticking with his writing discipline, a difficulty that several of us shared. He listed as one of his goals to write and post once per week a fiction project of some kind. We discussed some of the ways to organize and spur that, one suggestion being the launch of (yet another) blog.

While I'm not yet prepared to launch another blog, I find myself sharing Tim's frustrations with my literary output lately. Luckily, Men's Bible Study last night also furnished me with a solution to my writing dry-spell. All of the rest of the guys were going on and on about fantasy football (second only to commodity trading in snore-factor for me). But while they were considering dozens of names of random players from various NFL teams, spouting stats and rankings for their fantasy teams, my imagination caught a hold of something and a chunk of a short-story popped into my head. I'll be working on that with whatever free time permitted me in the next week, free time after that becoming only a fantasy in itself (with little Sarah on her way).

So, based on all this, I hereby propose a writing challenge. Spend a day listening and observing for a provocative hook that happens around you. Perhaps it's a blog article you have read, a conversation overheard, a TV commercial, an irritating work project, a road-rage episode, anything. Take from it a theme that infuriates or fascinates you, and then press that theme to its edges using either the technology of science fiction or the magic of fantasy to explore it imaginatively.

Here's my example.

The ridiculousness of fantasy football blew my mind: first you take a long LONG lists of stats of individual players and choose a set of them. Then you watch their performance numbers game by game during a season and trade them around like coffee beans in commodity markets. This fascinated me as an organizing principle. What if our knowledge and labor economy worked this way? What if armies were organized like this? What if technology could "stat-out" people according to work performance or combat capability, and then manage them like a billion independent free-agents like a giant stock market? I'll be writing, using science fiction and the industrial engineering concept of "Just in Time", a day-in-the-life story just to see what that would be like. Who knows if I'll get anywhere, but it sparked me enough that I have written 400 words of brainstorms, background, and scene possibilities this morning. I'll have some prose to post soon...

The launch of new blogs

So I've been threatening for a while to launch some new blogs, and after much work in the web design area, I finally got my first new one out of the gate.

A tiny bit of background first: I've always been irritated by a lack of good sites on the internet that review fantasy and science fiction in anything approaching my tastes. Nearly all the sites out there are so specialized that I can't even understand what they are saying, or they are so broad so as to praise every work to be released by Tor with phrases like "lucent, lyrical prose", "fast-paced" and "action-packed". I managed to find a movie review site out there whom I trust, and I hope to become something like that for picky fans of the fantasy genre. Someday. After I get a few more posts on: fantasticfictions.blogspot.com.

Okay, since I wrote this blog, I got inspired and launched one of the others I've been sitting on for a while. Go check out sanctuscross.blogspot.com.

Sustained focus on our goals:New tools for my spiritual disciplines

The season of Lent this year revealed much to me about the practice of spiritual disciplines. One of the insights that I value from this experience is the realization that I can be pretty tenacious about a disciplined behavior when it has a fixed (and short) duration. For Lent, I chose to give up shopping for books (gasp!) and all non-real food.

Those may seem strange goals for Lent, but here was the rationale: the book thing was becoming for me a habit of mind--when I had free time, one of the things which occurred to me was to go check out what's new at the local bookstore. I have limited funds with which to buy books, so it wasn't a matter really of stewardship so much as, well, lust. I wanted to know what new books were out and what great deals I could find at some of the local book shops. I wanted to add to my collection, I wanted new ideas to think about, I wanted new adventures to experience in the form of fiction. The habit of mind was becoming intrusive, so it was time to chain it up for a while and teach it some manners. The diet thing was similar--chain up the desire for worthless food: cookies, cake, fried junk, candy, chips--the stuff that has no nutritional value but rises higher on the "I-want" list than bread and beans (and makes the bathroom scale rise higher too). Hence the Lenten fast.

I didn't find it terribly difficult to give up either of these things, mostly because I knew it was for a limited duration. Granted, when Melissa baked cookies for house guests or when we came to dessert time at Home Community, my eyes certainly locked on the goodies for longer than was healthy. But all in all, not too bad.

The really interesting part for me was the transition following Lent. Once I could return to the bookstore and the bag of chips, I found that my desire for them had changed. The habit of mind had shrunk significantly for both items, and I found that life pretty much went on just fine without either thing. Of course, like an idiot, I started eating french fries again just because I could and now I'm back to craving them all the time. But it didn't have to turn out that way. With better management of transition between the season of tight discipline and returning to a normal order of life, I could have put minor behaviors in place which would have maintained the discipline without it really being a discipline--instead, it would have become a change in habit.

Which brings me to my new tool: the 21-day discipline. Lent was too long and has too many other worthy and powerful spiritual components to be repeated more than once a year. But, taking what I learned from the short-term discipline part of it, I am implementing a new strategy in reaching the various spiritual, financial, emotional, and physical goals I have set for myself. I pick one thing to address for a period of 21 days and set up a discipline around it. Then, through prayer and the application of my own will, I seek to free myself from habits which obstruct the accomplishment of my goals.

Also, taking what I have learned from the transition out of Lent, I'll try to take advantage of the loosening of the old habits and put the minor behaviors in place which will maintain and nurture the new habits until they become "nature".

For example, on May 5th, I began a discipline intended to open the way to one of my goals: to become a published writer. As a pastor, husband, and father, I don't have an excess of free time, so finding time to write has remained a real challenge. Add to that the fact that sleep and I get along very, very well, I have set for myself the goal of adjusting my sleeping habits and schedule to allow for some disciplined writing time. For the last ten days (excluding Sundays, the day for celebration and rest from your discipline; another thing I learned from Lent), I have been getting out of bed at 6:00am and writing for two hours. Actually, it works out to more like 45 minutes, once I get some cereal down, make coffee, and stare at the screen until I wake up, but the idea is the same. That's 45 minutes more per day than I have ever had in my life.

The trick will come at the end of the 21 days. How will I maintain the discipline of rising early while setting down the hard work of forcing myself out of bed at 6:00? It's already becoming a habit, but what happens when I am "free" to sleep in whenever I feel like it? And oh, will I feel like it come May 26th. I wonder.

Monsters in the Garbage Cans, pt. II

(read part I)

Edward came to the foot of ladder, setting his feet on what seemed like damp stone. The pungent scent of garbage still lingered, but it was no worse than it was at the top of the ladder. Even down here, he could still hear the bubble gum music ponderously thudding along. Somewhere in the distance, water trickled into a drain. Only the strongest rays of light braved these depths, leaving Edward enveloped in umbrous shadow; and though he could see nothing around him, he found that he was not much afraid. Better here than stuck in a fashion shop all afternoon.

In the darkness he searched his pockets, discovering there a Super Joe action figure he had brought with him. Edward smiled the smile of false competence, as if he had known all along that he would find himself in such a predicament. You see, Super Joe was a large action figure whose main weapon against Terron was a fearsome chest-mounted laser cannon. And since most toy manufacturers frowned upon the distribution of such armaments to small children (at least in the United States), they substituted a weak flashlight beam. Edward switched it on and held the figure before him like something part way between a crucifix and a fully-articulated lantern.

The dim light revealed the walls to be formed of smooth concrete, cold and dusty. The floor was rougher and every few feet, Edward had to step around a wide, shallow puddle of muddy water. He walked along in his small bubble of light for several minutes, taking a turn here or there. He fancied he could not become lost, since the route did not branch at any point that he could see. It did not take him long to leave behind a whole world of malls and fashion shops, pretzel vendors and pet stores; so easily we forget ourselves in the solitude of our private journeys.

A faint scratching sound reached his ears from somewhere far ahead. Edward stopped to listen; the scratching reminded him of the sound of his spaniel's dull nails on the hardwood floors of the kitchen. He wondered to himself what sort of dog would wander tunnels like this. He supposed it could drink from the muddy puddles, but who filled its bowl? As he continued toward it, the sound grew louder until he began to wonder why he did not see the dog's eyes glimmering in Joe's light beam. Edward stopped, listening again for the sound. The scratching sound had stopped. And as he looked around, he realized he had come into some sort of small chamber, circular in shape, with walls which bent in and up like a funnel.

As he was looking up into the darkness, he caught a brief flash of light accompanied by the sound of a small, rusty metal door swinging open. Before the light disappeared again, he caught a glimpse of something falling toward him. He instinctively covered his head with his hands. Just in time too, for he was struck by something which left him warm, wet, and sticky—what was that smell? Coffee?

He found where he had dropped Super Joe, and shined the dim light around him. It was indeed coffee—and there on the floor near him was a soggy Starbucks cup. "Yuck, who drinks that stuff?" he said to himself, utterly unaware that opinions might be subject to change years hence.

He looked up again, wondering where the cup had come from. The coffee was not hot, the cup had not been full—then it occurred to him: the tiny metal door above him was the door to a metal garbage can. Which meant—

Something grey and bristling walked toward him out of the darkness, its dull nails scratching along the floor. Edward backed away until he bumped into the cold concrete wall. As it crept closer, he could see a shaggy head in a mass of grey fur, and above a wide mouth of square white teeth peered two large yellow eyes. They blinked at him. Edward did not know if he should be frightened or reassured by its appearance—it was something of a cross between a chubby wolf and a furry bean bag. And those white teeth smiling (snarling?) at him, none of it gave any clear indication of the beast's intentions.

Edward waited in silence, holding Super Joe before him like a talisman. And then the beast did something else unexpected—it spoke! In a gurgling voice, as if speaking from the bottom of a pool, it said, "Come ex-plorin', did it? What does it want?"

Edward frowned and looked around. Was it talking to him? Edward had never been refered to as an 'it' before. In a weak voice, he ventured, "Are you talking to me?"

The beast jumped back, startled. With wide eyes, it asked, "It speaks? A greeder speaks, now that makes for silly con-versation!"

"Who—what are you?"

"Sogga-Moffin, that's my name. And that's what I am; I eats the greeders' toss-aways. Do greeders have names? Something to eats?"

"My name is Edward." He hesitated, then added, "You don't plan to eat me do you?"

A sound like a clogged garbage disposal echoed around the chamber. After Edward realized that it was laughing, he calmed down a little. It said, after it had finished its grating laughter, "Silly Edwards; why would a Sogga-Moffin eats a greeder? Then Edward give no more eats, Sogga-Moffins go hungry."

Edward breathed a sigh of relief. Spying the coffee cup on the floor, he pointed to it. "What about that? Do you eat those?"

The shaggy beast turned its head, and upon seeing the cup, it opened its wide mouth, revealing three rows of blocky white teeth. A slimy tongue ending in three little knuckle-knobs unfurled from behind the teeth. With this strange and disgusting appendage, Sogga-Moffin lifted the coffee cup to its mouth and began chewing slowly like a cow.

Edward shook his head, half amazed, half disgusted. "Where is this place?"

The bristly brows above its dark eyes knitted together in what looked like a frown. It continued chewing for several long moments, and then let out a moist and fragrant belch. "Not polite to talks while Sogga-Moffin chews. Where, greeder asks? How it comes to Dis-kardia and doesn't know where it is?"

"Diskardia? I've never heard of such a place. Do the janitors know it exists? I always thought they just emptied the garbage cans."

Sogga-Moffin looked at him quizzically. "Sogga-Moffin doesn't know 'jan-i-tors', doesn't know gar-bage cans. Sogga-Moffin takes greeders to the Drain-Snipes. Maybe they knows." The beast wheeled around and scuttled off into the darkness, and to his own surprise, Edward followed. Much, much better than a fashion store, Edward thought to himself.

(part III coming soon...)

“Ssssh, They might hear you…”

Once upon a time, a young boy went to the shopping mall with his two cousins. They were both girls, a little older than him, with blonde hair and bright eyes. They liked nothing better than to parade him around the city, pretending as if he were their younger brother, or perhaps son, depending on what sort of game they felt like playing that day. The boy, who's name was Edward, especially liked it when they took him to the toy store with the glass cases where they kept all the rare and wonderful toys that couldn't be found at any other toy seller.

Each time they took Edward with them wherever they went, they remembered why Edward's parents were trying to get loose of him to begin with: he was a very loud and rambunctious boy, who, with no regard whatever for the sensibilities of two blonde teenagers, would skip around the echoing halls of the mall making frighteningly realistic fire engine noises at the top of his lungs.

On this particular day, it had not taken long for one of the girls to lose her patience with his shrill gambolling. She marched over to him and caught him by the wrist. Kneeling down, she whispered, "Sssshhhh, They might hear you. Do you really want Them to know you are here?"

Confused, the boy looked around. A few familes walked the mall, pushing strollers or carrying large plastic bags filled with shoes or albums or jewelry boxes. A straggly old man with a yellowing beard nursed a foam coffee cup. A security guard stared blankly from behind a desk set into the wall, one hand propping up his chin.

"No, not them. Them." The girl pointed a quivering finger toward the bulbous, silver-topped garbage cans. "Inside. They'll hear you."

"What are you talking about?"

"They live inside those garbage cans, listening. And if they hear you, they'll rush out from their lair, streak across the mall in a flash of black fur and razor-teeth, snatch you up, and you'll never come out again."

The boy stopped and stared at the garbage cans. They looked big enough to house such a creature, and as he looked around, everyone else was being very quiet. Come to think of it, the only sound at all came from somewhere near the ceiling: a dull, placid piano. He looked up at his cousin, who was standing above him now, holding his hand with a wide, proud smile on her face. Solemnly, he nodded.

The rest of the way to the teen fashion store, Edward walked silently, close to his cousins, looking up and down the wide walks for streaking black fur. Perhaps his shoes squeaked louder than others? Could they hear him breathing? Why were his cousins talking so loud? As they passed row after row of benches, each one had a garbage can on either side. The boy's eyes locked on each one, watching breathlessly for the tiniest sway of its topmost, silvery swing-door.

He let out a long sigh upon crossing onto the carpet of the fashion store, the girls' favorite mall destination. He hated the store; there was nothing to play with, only a thousand round racks filled with strangely colored clothing that made ridiculous anyone who touched them. Normally, he would remain outside the store, running around the middle of the mall among the collections of benches, fake plants, wide brown rugs, and (gulp) garbage cans. He hugged one of the plastic pillars at the entrance to the store, watching the five or six cans within sight. He was thankful for the sanctuary.

Reluctantly, Edward turned eyes back to the interior of the fashion store, the pink and purple heaps making him squint and frown. Bubble gum music oozed from hidden alcoves somewhere above him. Somewhere to one side, his cousins chortled excitedly with garishly dressed and clownishly painted attendants. "There has to be something fun to do in here," Edward said to himself.

Still shorter than most of the clothing racks, he wound his way between them to the back of the store, where the clothes no one wanted waited on dusty racks. He found a particularly full rack, and thrust his hands between an orange sweater and something made from lime-green taffeta, parting them just wide enough for him to climb inside. Bunching shut behind him, the circular clothing rack became his refuge from the store, a fortress from which he could think up something fun to do.

As he thought through his options, he glanced down in the dim light which filtered through the glass top of the rack. He noticed that on the dirty floor beneath him, right in the middle of the carpet, was what appeared to be a wooden trap door, complete with a gnarled iron ring set in its face. He had never seen anything like it, except maybe in an old story book or cartoon. He stared at it for a long time, as if waiting for something to burst forth from below. On a whim, he reached down, grasped the ring firmly, and pulled the creaking door upright. Suddenly, the smell of dirty water and old burger wrappers billowed his nose. The light was just strong enough for him to see the top rungs of an old wooden ladder which led down into the steaming darkness.

A voice came from somewhere outside the world of the rack, "Edward, where'd you go?"

He set one foot on the ladder, glanced up once, and then began climbing down…

(read part II)

Tiny biplanes appeared in the skies

Tiny biplanes appeared in the skies above the courtyard, flying long, slow sorties just beneath the branches of the spreading maple. So far as anyone knew, no biplanes had ever been sighted there before. They were very small, no more than eight inches in length, and had emerged just that morning from the nativity of their box. They had come not as biplanes at all, or so the instructions would indicate. But the boy, too young for legos anyway, had no patience for tedious instructions. These white and grey and red atoms of joy became rough-hewn flying machines in his tinkering hands, piloted by white knights of the sky visible only to the eyes of imagination.

Other toys made their sojourn to this courtyard, too, along with books about dinosaurs and pads of drawing paper. The boy visited here often, staying with his grandmother in a small apartment where she lived alone. Her door and six others formed a ring around that soft floor of green where the boy played. Sometimes he would visit his grandmother's neighbors, all venerable folk in their gowns and slippers, all smiles and shining eyes. He could not remember them ever leaving the cozy doorways which looked out upon that small green world.

In the coming year, his infant sister would crawl upon that lush grass. Years after that, before it would ever see their home, the boy and his sister would bring their newly purchased guinea pig to that courtyard and set it free upon that garden of greens. And they would laugh, because it never moved more than a step from its cage, but rather sat and chewed, content there, the wide courtyard a world larger than it could imagine.

One narrow walk leads away from the courtyard, away from the solemn apartments, to the blacktop where the muscular Chevelle broods. It belonged to his grandmother, but now it only waits. It will not be long until the boy pilots that rough-forged iron machine to a nervous young woman's house, and there beneath the moon kiss her awkwardly, eagerly.

The grandmother is gone now. In the passing years, what strange feet have crossed that quiet courtyard of grass, what faces lurk behind the doors that guard it? No biplanes brave the skies beneath that spreading maple. The boy is grown, and the biplanes wait in the mind of his daughter. Perhaps this time they will be born anew not as biplanes at all, but delicate flying horses or glittering fairies visible only to the eyes of imagination.

The death of the biographical adjective

There is no such thing as Platonic love between a man and a woman.

Though some fervently disagree with Mr. Bush, few would suggest he has taken a Machiavellian approach to domestic policy.

American political candidates concretely espousing Marxist platforms do not fare well.

Calvinist. Darwinian. Newtonian. Tolkeinesque. Jeffersonian. Confucian. Cartesian.

Examples of biographical adjectives, born of earlier eras where authors were known only for their major works, works that were fixed in scope but deeply influential and widely read. And while intensive biographies written about these authors continue to argue over the precise nature of their thought worlds, influences, and character, the broad contours are well enough defined to become meaningful as a new category. Those who make such profound impact on the imaginations of their society are immortalized by becoming adjectives.

I wonder if the fluid world of online writing will bring about the death of the biographical adjective. The nature of the online world is never definitive, always "in conversation". From day to day, the moods of bloggers and authors change. And, as the author discovers more information, encounters aggressive and rhetorically persuasive counterproposals, and navigates the sea of non-substantive but emotionally rapacious comments, what effect will this have on the marketplace of ideas? Given the potential output of such thinkers over their lifetime, how much shift in thought might we detect? If Darwin had written a blog, would his views on his own discoveries have changed over time, especially in dialogue not only with sympathizers, but also with critics? In such a world, how would the impact he made differ?

Even in the traditional world of "old" media, you can sometimes detect this trend. Scholars who study Dietrich Bonhoeffer have a hard time figuring how a guy who wrote The Cost of Discipleship (a profoundly pacifistic call to obey Jesus' commands) went on to become part of a cadre of men who attempted to kill Hitler near the end of World War II. Even his later writings from prison differ markedly from his earlier works. And, judging from the way the man is known in our circles today, the impact of his more theologically provocative work is blunted because of this perceived wavering in perspective.

Other authors are well known for this. Michael Medved made the shift from political liberalism to an aggressive conservativism, recounting his journey in a series of books. The well known scholar of pastoral ministry, Thomas Oden, underwent a similar dramatic shift in transformation which he recounts in The Rebirth of Orthodoxy. I remember that as a seminary student, after reading this book, I wondered how much I could trust in his earlier works regarding pastoral theology.

As an aspiring author (both of fiction and nonfiction), I find myself daunted by the prospect of publishing. I find myself sympathetic to people like Brian McLaren, who, having written provocative statements and published them for all the world to see, now finds himself modifying statements he once made in an ever-evolving attempt to say something current. His language in his books is peppered with the concept of journey, and he openly admits he is figuring things out along the way. No matter the disclaimer, are not all his claims rendered more hollow merely because of the medium?

The medium of the written word, whether in print or pixel, comes with a radical permanence which frightens me each time I attempt an article. I will readily admit that some things I have to say are more refined than others. Some questions I have posed before have seen their answers. And yet there is much that is fluid in my thinking. What responsibilities do I have to my readers (and my hearers on Sunday mornings, my partners in Bible study, my children in the faith)? What eternal disciplines apply to expanding worlds of new communication?

As I write this, it occurs to me: do Jesus' words in Matthew 5:33-37 have anything to say to this?

Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

I wonder.

But one thing's for sure. I seriously doubt we'll see Campbellian as an adjective anytime in the future...