Category: writing life (Page 15 of 19)
I honestly don’t miss social media. I don’t miss putting so much of myself online for others to view.
(Said the woman who is currently blogging… BUT, blogging is somehow different, just as writing a book and publishing it is different. A practical and non-inconsequential difference is that there are no “Like” buttons that come with selling a book. I’m not there with readers, looking to see whether or not they’ll give me a heart emoji at the end of each chapter. The book belongs to them, and if they read it, they’ll make it into their own story. They will complete the journey for themselves, and I am no longer part of that journey. Similarly, there are no “Likes” or what-have-you with my blog posts. Yes, I have a comment option for each post, but whether someone comments or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m writing, and the blog is my own space. I’m not fighting for attention or popularity the way I am on social media. Frankly, the feeling I get when I use something like Twitter or Goodreads is the same feeling of insecurity I used to get in middle school when I struggled to be popular. It’s not a feeling I’m keen on reliving. And yet, I bought into the lie that I needed to be involved with these platforms. I bought into the seduction that somehow, some way, Twitter would help me as an author, that Goodreads would result in good connections, good friends. But all I ever experienced was anxiety, inadequacy, and the gnawing feeling that I wasn’t popular enough. Being free of all that? Liberating. Now I keep track of my books in my writer’s notebook. No one but my husband and my real-life friends know what books I’m reading. I love it. I love being anonymous. I love sharing myself through my writing, but in a place and in a way that is mine, that allows me to simple BE, to not worry about my “numbers” or my “platform” or my “brand.” All of those things make me shiver. Good riddance.)
All of this social media shedding that I’ve been doing is a result of having read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, and putting into practice his “digital de-clutter.” I did the de-clutter during Lent (which is technically longer than the 30 days Newport recommends, but if I could do it for 30 days, what’s ten days more?). On Fat Tuesday, I removed all my social media apps, my podcast app, my email app, and moved the Google search bar off the main page and into the recesses of the “Settings–>Apps” screen (which, if I wanted to access it, required me to do some extra clicking and searching before I could find it). The only thing remaining on my phone’s main screen was the text messaging app, the calendar app, my Fertility Awareness app (being digitally minimal does not mean I’m going to suddenly start baby-making any time soon, so the fertility awareness app — aka, my birth control method — ain’t goin’ nowhere!), my alarm app, and my camera/photo gallery apps. Also the calculator app, because that’s just handy. My smartphone suddenly became almost-dumb. My rule for text messaging was that I was only going to check three times: morning, right after work, and before bed. This way my mom or whoever could still communicate information via text, but I wasn’t going to be picking up my phone every time a notification buzzed in. I told people that if they wanted to reach me right away they could call me. I actually started calling friends and family on the phone again, chatting with them for a few minutes and checking in with their lives. It was kinda awesome.
I basically stopped looking at my phone other than the few times I needed to check my texts. Over the course of those forty days, I often forgot where my phone was. It was just lying around somewhere: on the kitchen table, on a bookshelf, in my bedroom, in the kitchen. I didn’t care. If someone needed me, I’d hear the phone ring. Otherwise, it was of no consequence to me.
To fill my time, I read books. Lots of books. And I kept track of them in my writer’s notebook, not on Goodreads. I listened to music (part of the digital de-clutter meant that I had to give up Hulu and Netflix). I wrote in my notebook a lot. I practiced my guitar. I read adventure modules for DCC and planned out my group’s ongoing campaign. I wrote some of my novel (a.k.a.: the second book of the Merlin trilogy, a.k.a.: the book that never seems to be finished). I rediscovered just how much I love to read. I freaking LOVE to read. Not online articles, or websites, or headlines, but BOOKS. Glorious, paper-y, thick-bound books!
Once Lent ended, and I could *technically* start using the Internet again, I found myself uninterested in plugging back in. I haven’t looked at Twitter in MONTHS. Facebook never held any allure for me, but I haven’t even paid it a passing glance since going “digitally minimal.” Even sites like Goodreads and Reddit — sites that I thought I liked — have turned out to be, in reality, kinda dull. I’m not tempted to go back. Keeping track of my books in my pen-and-paper notebook, talking about them with my husband and friends, being suddenly a “private” reader — all of this has given me immense pleasure and satisfaction.
I’m not proclaiming all this in order to win accolades or put myself above others. I’m not special; I’m not better than anybody. I don’t think people who use social media are somehow lesser. But for my own part, I’m glad I’ve unplugged from Twitter and the rest. I’m glad that I only use my phone for making calls and sending the occasional text. I’m glad that I spend my time reading books and not internet news feeds. I’m a happier person — less anxious, less envious — and if it’s not too grandiose to say, I’m living a better life without all the digital clutter.
I’ll also say that the actual book that led me to de-clutter, Digital Minimalism, is not a perfect book. I think it’s too focused on productivity, too blinded toward the realities of lower income people, caregivers, and people who don’t have the same support system as Newport. So it’s not a book without some serious flaws. However, in general, its prescription for a digitally minimalist lifestyle has worked for me. For many people, their internet usage gives them satisfaction and pleasure; or at the very least, it’s value-neutral. But for me, it was kinda making me miserable. I’ve said goodbye to all that, and I’m glad of it.
Following up from my previous post, I happened to see this on Austin Kleon’s blog:
This is exactly what’s been happening with me and my fiction. I haven’t had enough “input” — whether from other fiction, movies, music, life, poetry, walks outside, whatever. It’s nice to see my theory about how ideas dry up meet some support from Kleon and the various artists he quotes. My problem right now is that I have nothing to share with the world because I haven’t been taking in enough stuff, ruminating on other people’s ideas, and diffusing all of that through my own imagination. I have no creative energy because I haven’t been feeding my creative mind.
I think for me, input is most nourishing when it’s both contemplative and active, meaning time for reading/watching/listening but also time for going outside and taking walks. I’ve been ruminating on the subject of walking lately, and I think one of the biggest changes that has happened since getting married, moving into our current house, and having kids, is that I hardly ever take solitary walks anymore. I go for walks with my husband and our kids — wonderful walks that I treasure — but I don’t take long rambles by myself where I look at the trees and come up with ideas. I used to ramble a lot when I was in my teens and twenties. I was never a hardcore hiker or anything; I just walked through shady subdivisions and quiet streets. But those shady lanes were formative for my creative ideas and imagination. I do think that my lack of solitary walking time has led to a lack of input.
But maybe it’s not the walking so much as it is the quiet time outside by myself. That is something I can do regardless of my state in life. If I wanted to, I could go outside right now while the kids are napping and sit on the deck. I could very easily go outside and hang out for a minute or two any day I choose. The question is: why don’t I? Does it seem like a waste of time? Does it seem indulgent? I do think I’ve been overcome lately by a “productivity mindset” that says every moment must be productive and useful (especially when the kids are napping). If I’m just sitting around outside, then I’m not DOING anything.
But what about doing nothing? Is there value to that? I would say that contemplative time is good; we need moments of rest, to contemplate and let our minds wander. But I’ve been caught in the web of “productivity” for so long now that I’ve forgotten how good it is to simply sit around and think. Sure, I’m thinking while I do the dishes (or whatever), but I’m still doing something; I’m maximizing my time. Bleh.
What I need to rediscover is the ability to just sit around. To not worry about getting anything done. To let a few things go undone. To daydream. To waste time — even when the kids are napping .
In a way, the daydreaming part is where the input gets turned into output. We feed ourselves all the books, poetry, nature, music, etc., but then we need to sit around and daydream, digesting the food. Once we’ve gone through the daydreaming process, then we have something to release. Then we have the output.
I know Bradbury’s answer: “Read a poem, a story, and an essay every day.” Without a deep well of “metaphors” (his word for ideas/images/stories), we dip the bucket in time and again and come up dry. That’s where I’m at right now with imaginative, fictive writing.
I’m writing plenty of nonfiction: blogging, notebook thoughts, book reviews, lesson plans and such. But my stories have become a wasteland of nothingness. No ideas. No images. No stories to tell.
I suppose I can blame my own perfectionism, the way it creeps into every crevice of my head and tells me, “No, that’s a terrible idea.” Or: “No, that’s no good. You sound like a hack.” But lately, in the last couple of weeks (since mid-May, perhaps), when I go into my head to find some words or ideas for a scene, I find nothing. Emptiness. Total blankness. Silence.
Am I not reading enough poetry? Not enough stories and novels? Not enough pleasure reading and daydreaming?
I definitely don’t do enough daydreaming. When I get a moment of quiet, I spend it reveling in the quiet and barely a thought peeps out. I’m out of practice with daydreaming, but how do I get back into practice? I know part of the problem is that I’m a worrier, and now that I’m a mom, I worry ALL THE TIME. I worry that my kids are sick, or that they’re not eating well, or that they watch too much T.V., or that something catastrophic will happen to them (unlikely stuff like a tornado hitting our house or a fire or a gas leak) (which is not to say that those things don’t sometimes happen, but the inordinate amount of time I spend worrying about them is not healthy or sane). I also worry about work, about appointments, about deadlines and bills and engagements and special events: all of the activities and responsibilities of life that weigh me down psychically. All the Things I Have to Do. Too many Things.
I have a hard time putting all of these deadlines and due dates and events out of my head and just letting go. Which is why I seldom daydream anymore. Driving to work or taking a shower are my only daydream moments, it seems. (Neither of which I do very much when school is on break for the summer. No driving to work, and fewer showers because there’s no one to watch the kids while I clean up.)
So I am stinky and lacking in daydreams.
What I could do is read more fiction and poetry. That, at least, is something I have control over. I’ve been on a nonfiction reading kick lately (and the books have been wonderful, no doubt), but maybe I need to set aside the nonfiction and get lost in a bunch of fantasy novels and Victorian poetry and even read some myths and legends again.
And maybe I need to start writing crappy dialogue and hackneyed plot devices and terrible prose and just live with it. Better to write shitty stuff than to not write at all (she said with some doubt but still with as cheery a tone as she could manage).
I go through these dark periods a lot, don’t I? Lots of “writer’s block” and lack of ideas and whinging about it on my blog. I feel bad spewing my negativity onto the Internet, but I also don’t feel bad. This is my blog. It’s my space to write my thoughts. I don’t have to put on a performance, to be “on brand,” or to sell anybody anything. If I want to whine and bitch, then I can whine and bitch. And if nobody reads it, then no big deal. I’m not trying to rack up hits or likes or anything of the sort. I’m just putting my ideas out into the world and perhaps someone will stumble upon them and see a kindred soul. Or not.
Anyway, I should probably write some bad fiction now. Let all my adjectives be shitty and all my characters cliche!
When I wrote the second draft of The Thirteen Treasures of Britain, I was also reading The Last Unicorn. Even though my story and Beagle’s had little in common, the music of his prose, the vitality of his world made an impact on me while I was writing. I wanted my book to capture some strain of the magic that I felt The Last Unicorn possessed. Even though I knew my own novel would never equal Beagle’s masterpiece, I wanted to try. In short, The Last Unicorn was inspiring. It energized my writing, and I found myself more joyful while I read it, and more joyful while I was writing my own story.
It’s no secret that I’ve had trouble finishing my second novel, Ysbaddaden and the Game of Chess. I’ve had babies, become the mother of three children all under the age of five, struggled to navigate the demands of teaching, mothering, and adulting, and all the while, I’ve felt less joyful and more overwhelmed. My writing time has evaporated, and with it, a lot of my enthusiasm. I’ve still managed to push on, to write even when it feels like a slog through the Swamps of Sadness, but without that spark of joyfulness that I felt when drafting The Thirteen Treasures. So this second book is taking an eternity to finish.
Curiously, at this very moment, I’m reading another classic of fantasy literature (A Wizard of Earthsea), and I’m finding myself suddenly joyful and energized again, inspired to sit down and work on the draft of my own novel.
Just like what happened with The Last Unicorn.
Le Guin’s prose, the depth of her world and her themes, the way I become completely immersed and lost in her story, the way it feeds my imagination — all of these things remind me of what it’s like to be a fantasy writer, to dream up characters and places and fantastical creatures. And when I do sit down to write, I feel nourished by Le Guin’s story. Great writing makes us as writers see what’s possible, what can be achieved with words, and when I know there are storytellers out there who have reached greatness, then in some small way, I hope I can reach it too. I know I won’t; that’s not the point. It’s the striving for greatness that gives me energy, that helps me find joy in my writing.
I am, at times, haunted by Ray Bradbury’s maxim to “write with gusto.” So much of my writing over the last year and a half has not been filled with much gusto. But when I read a great book — fantasy or otherwise — I gain some measure of gusto, some “kick-joy” (as Kerouac? would say), and I begin to wonder why I don’t just read great books all the time. If these books work like a tonic on my brain, why wouldn’t I imbibed every day? Why am I spending time on things that don’t fill me up with this kind of excitement and awe?
I suppose it’s because we don’t know which books will contain the magic until we start them, and I’m the sort of reader who hates to abandon a book once I’ve started it. There are a few that I DNF, but they are very few. And I also feel obliged to read widely in my genre, most particularly the books being published right now; I can’t exactly restrict myself to the Great Classics of Fantasy if I’m trying to keep up with what’s being written currently. Of course, I’ve read some current fantasy that has indeed been the magical-kind-of-great that I’m describing in this post, but without the benefit of time and distance, it’s hard to know which of these books will be The Ones, and which won’t.
Maybe I need to constantly have a great book on hand, for those times when my verve seems a little limp. I can always read more than one book at a time; I’ve been that kind of reader since I was a kid. But now I realize that I DO need to keep pumping blood into my imagination via these great books. I need Ged — naming the otak, struggling against the shadow, overcoming his pride — and others of his kind to journey with me, keeping me on the path of adventure, like Gandalf and the dwarves leading Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain.
Any book that can make me feel sympathy for a cannibalistic child-killer is obviously doing something profound. Richard Nell’s first book in his Ash and Sand series is nothing if not ambitious. Which I love. I love when writers try to actually say something with their work, when they try to find deeper truths. Exploring the inner workings of a broken sociopath while also delving into big questions like, “Why is the world unjust?” and “How are we called to respond to that injustice?” is a feat unto itself. Most writers satisfy their ambitions by trying to write a good plot with good characters; few writers seem up to the challenge of writing a great story, great characters, and powerful themes. Nell attempts that here, and I find that immensely exciting.
As soon as I read the first few chapters I knew that Kings of Paradise was trying to do more than just tell a ripping good story. It was trying to say something, to explore themes, to offer meaning, to stick to the bones in a way that had me immediately hooked. It also helps that Nell is a gifted writer with an amazing knack for creating characters that are dynamic, rounded, and utterly engaging. Whether it’s in the story line of the aforementioned sociopath, Ruka, or in the idealistic survivor Dala, or in the struggles and heartbreaks of the fundamentally-decent Kale, Nell’s characters feel fully alive, and I wanted to join them in their journeys of revenge, self-discovery, and enlightenment.
The world of Kings of Paradise is a neat little twist on the usual geography we residents of the Northern Hemisphere usually get in our fantasy settings. The Ascom, with its vaguely Norse-inspire names and culture is actually an Antarctic-type continent where South is colder than North. And the island kingdom where Kale lives and is prince is modeled on South East Asia (it’s a great economic power in the region, so maybe we are meant to see nods to the great Malacca trading empire of the Middle Ages). I’m not familiar with many fantasy epics that take place in a S.E. Asia-inspired setting, so for that alone, the book is intriguing.
What’s also intriguing is how Nell creates a matriarchal society in the Ascom, a place where a theocratic regime of women priestesses rules the land, and where families are known by their mothers’ names. One of the things I find most exciting about this world is the tension between the different religious beliefs: the old ways which seem to be more pantheistic and which favor traditional manly values like strength and feats of arms, versus the priestess-religion which focuses on one god (actually a goddess) and its values of law and orderliness. The dichotomy is set up between a might-makes-right/Chaos belief system and a follow-the-laws-and-conventions-of-society/Lawful system. Of course, as we discover, the matriarchal Lawful society is actually brimming with corruption, so we also get to explore themes related to dealing with a corrupt system and what to do when the laws and conventions of a society break down. This stuff: I LOVED.
And I also loved the journeys the characters went on — at least through the first 3/4 of the book. Ruka and Dala’s journeys were my favorite — not because they were good people, but actually despite their not-good-ness. They are each crusaders, fanatics in their own ways, and yet I was sympathetic to them and to their brokenness. Kale, despite being the nicest guy in the book, was actually my least favorite of the three major story lines. While the Ruka/Dala stories felt original and startling, the Kale story felt a little bit like a hodge-podge of other stories (a little Kaladin and Bridge Four at times; other times I felt like I was reading the “Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei” sequence from Kill Bill vol. 2). The Kale story isn’t bad by any means, but the lessons he learns and the themes that get explored felt a bit trite, especially when contrasted with the stories set in the Ascom.
For three-quarters of the book, I was entranced. Unfortunately, that last quarter was a bit of a disappointment. All of the thematic questions raised earlier in the story seemed to get dropped by the end. One of the characters deals with his “goal” at about the 70% mark, and then from that point forward switches into a much more straight-forward villain. He goes from having a complicated and twisted motivation — something that I both wanted him to achieve and also not achieve at the same time — to having a simplistic “Let’s go conquer stuff” motivation that I found uninteresting. It moves the plot forward, I guess, but it’s not as rich as what was happening earlier in the book.
The other characters, as well, end up being less interesting when the final chapters roll along. I don’t want to spoil things, but one character gets dropped from the narrative almost entirely, and the other turns into something from a video game. Almost everyone goes from being multifaceted to being one-or-two-dimensional by the end.
EXCEPTION: One of the female characters does something so deliciously soap opera-y at the very end that I was immediately hooked to read the next book. So that’s a good thing. Ending on a crazy high note cliffhanger is always good. And what’s great about the gonzo ending is that even though it’s outrageous in some ways, it also makes some kind of crazy sense too. Now I’m fascinated to discover more about this person and her inner motivations and desires. Again, Nell has a way of hooking us with great characters who have hidden depths.
I know I am in the minority in finding these kinds of flaws in the book, but the last quarter of the story really left me disappointed, especially in comparison with what came before. The pacing was perfect up until about the 70% mark, but then during the last 30% new POVs kept getting introduced, events happened at a breakneck speed, and it felt very “off” compared with the earlier sections. All of this rushing about meant that the themes suffered, the characters grew flatter, and the promise of early greatness felt a bit dashed.
All of these criticisms aside, Kings of Paradise is a very good book. The writing, at a craft level, is stellar. Nell knows what he’s doing with language and it shows throughout. He also knows what he’s doing with character (for the most part), and I am excited to see where things go in the next book. I cannot say this is a book I will reread, but it is a book I will heartily recommend.
4.5 stars
