Yes, It Is All My Fault!

We’ve talked several times on this blog about creative “blocks”, and some ways to cope with and get around such things. One of the things I’ve slowly come to realize over the past several months, however, is that often something that looks like a “writer’s block”, might not be quite that. A friend pointed out a similar struggle in her own creativity recently, thus the topic (and title) of this post.

What do you do when what feels like writer’s block is something else? To clarify definitions for purposes of this discussion (though you can argue my parameters in the comments if you’d like), “standard writer’s block” often arises through struggles with regular writing routines, or insecurities or doubts about the worth or quality of one’s own work. What’s the point of all of this? or why am I trying something I’ll never succeed in? or I’m not that good a writer anyway are common refrains from the internal judges and censors in many of the blocks you might encounter. And we’ve talked before, and likely will again, about different ways to hack around those sorts of bumps.

There are several other life reasons you might need a break — or at least a slowing down — of your regular creative process. Because we’re used to the blocks we know, often these other reasons will feel like standard creative blocks, to our internal emotional perceptions, because those are the well-traveled neural pathways. For example, Elizabeth Bear refers to a state after she finishes a major project she calls “post-novel ennui”. She describes it feeling as if her brain’s insides are scraped clean, or the creative pool has been emptied and needs refilling. It’s taken her several novels to better understand her own patterns, but she’s found that if she gives herself the few days or weeks she needs to recharge — read books, do physical activity things, learn something new, watch TV shows, and just the minimum maintenance needed on her writing obligations — she can get to functional creativity on the next project much more quickly than if she just tries to push ahead immediately after finishing the previous project.

What if your need for hiatus is different than arriving at a project’s end? Major life changes can be stressful whether positive or negative, and if there is enough upheaval present, it can quite legitimately disrupt the energy available for other things (at least for a while), including your creative projects. Sure, you’ve spent time and sweat making sure you will keep writing anyway, even when life gets tricky, but what about when it gets extreme enough that taking a break would actually be more advantageous to your later creativity? A promotion, household relocation, or new addition to the family are all situations where it’s possible to keep creative flow going…but depending on the specific circumstances, it’s also possible a break would be better for long-term creative health.

Or what if your need for a pause is darker than that? Major life trauma will, if not bring your creative progress to a halt, at the very least cause extreme disruptions in your routine. It could affect which projects you continue working on, or even want to work on. Loss of a job, loss of family members or children, major physically debilitating or activity-changing illness, all these and more can make you question the very reasons you create at all, not to mention whether your current work is worth the work you’ve put into it. Depending on your emotional state, you may not be able to access the same creative energies that you could before. A project that was conceived and begun when you were in love and on top of the world is rather difficult to connect to, if you’re currently in a bleak and despairing place emotionally.

So what do you do when this sort of thing is on your plate?

First, you have to find the space to give yourself to take the needed break. In order to do that successfully, you’ll have to avoid the common habit of punishing yourself for the break-taking. For those of you inclined toward this behavior, a guilt-free break is harder than it looks.

(quoted from http://temujin9.livejournal.com/129914.html, quoting someone quoting someone else clever)
“flamingnerd writes:
I asked her, “do you have any negative self talk?” She burst into laughter and said, “Do I ever fart?!” And I got it. EVERYONE has negative self talk. And some people are more flatulent in that
regard than others. And it’s ok. It’s normal, not some great tragedy.

She went on to tell me of a talk given by a young Buddhist priest. “When you beat yourself with a stick just beat yourself with a stick and don’t beat yourself for beating yourself.”

Thanks to nationelectric for sharing the good reminder.”

For me, in my own recent-past traumatic experiences, I found that giving myself the space for a creative pause and recharge to happen wasn’t an adjustment I made overnight. It was a few months of struggle between what I felt I “should” be doing at a particular point in time, and what I knew internally needed to be happening if I was ever going to create regularly again. It was slow progress, a bunch of baby steps and “two steps forward, one step back” frustrations. It also required a lot of practice in trusting myself, in my ability to assess internally what I “knew” I needed to heal, and to ignore the conflicting inputs externally from people or sources less informed about my situation. Plus enough stubbornness to keep going on all of that when I didn’t “do it right” the first time or three.

When you’re in brownout mode, the pause is likely to be longer than you want it to be. Yes, that means your patience gets practice along with everything else. Fun times, eh? You are worth it, even the waiting. One day, finally, you might find yourself with a little more energy than you’ve had. The next day, more. One of the trickiest parts, at this stage, is not overloading yourself the first time you have energy to do more than just get by. That’s asking for a relapse, and that won’t help you get more functional. Add some small creative act into your daily routine, and stay with that for a bit, give your artistic muscles time to stretch after some disuse.

Soon enough you’ll notice that you’re a bit bored or frustrated with doing just one thing. This is probably a good sign that you’re ready to do more, but keep the lessons you’ve learned throughout this time in your mind, as you progress back towards more fullness of functioning. Push your limits, but in the spirit of a good workout, not burning yourself on as much as you can do. Let your momentum creep back in a healthy bit at a time, and use those healthy bits to springboard even more positive change.

Trusting ourselves is part of how we better learn to love ourselves. Your baby-steps will make progress. Heck, even 2 steps forward, 1 back will get you there eventually. When you start making visible progress and changes to your routine toward your goals? Don’t forget to notice it, and congratulate yourself. Ideally you have a couple of close friends to whom you can brag about your progress, however incremental, and have them support and cheer you on as well. But at the very least, make sure you give those kudos to yourself. Noticing all the work you’re doing for yourself is one of the best ways to get more such work out of you!

Throughout all of this process, spend time figuring out what really matters to you in this incarnation, regardless of which past goals or projects were important before. Allow your goals to change as you change, throughout your life. It is not a failure to survive and keep creating, even if your process is different than before — even if your work is different than before.

Z’Aria’s fingers shook a little as she held the paper. She read it through a few times before dropping her hands, the paper clutched in her sweaty palm. She seemed like she didn’t know where to look, her eyes scanning around rapidly.

“Explanations in this place aren’t easy, you know.” Z’Aria glanced over her shoulder briefly, then back. “I was in an accident a while ago.”

Callie looked where Z’Aria had and saw nothing more interesting than typical overpass intersection debris scattered across the concrete. “Did it happen as the paper described?”

Z’Aria looked uncomfortable. “Pretty much. My memory from then is all choppy and stuck together.”

“What happened after you landed? How did you survive the crash?”

I woke up here. Well, over there.” Z’Aria indicated the area behind her. Callie rose and went to look more closely at the spot, Z’Aria trailing her slowly.

The glitter of broken bits of glass reflected in the sodium lights of the overpass. Callie could see a twisted hubcap lying against the nearby pillar, and a few other shards of metal and plastic that were originally attached to a car.

“What happened to the car?”

“It stayed here for a while. I didn’t like looking at it, though. I went off exploring, and when I came back I guess it had finally been towed away.”

“Why did you come back?”

“I found a lot, out there. But not my answers, maybe not even my questions. Here is where it all started, you know? So I thought maybe if I came back here, I’d find the next step.”

“What happened then?”

“I made myself more comfy, got enough from the kindness of those passing by to survive. I spent time watching the sky; back home I used to know all the constellations, but not here. It didn’t happen all at once, you know. Seems like it did thinking back, but not all at once. Just really fast, you know? Days, weeks, everything changes.”

“What changes do you mean?”

“Oh come on, you have to have noticed. Everyone went to sleep, or went away. No one passes by here anymore, you’re the first person I’ve seen in forever.”

“I don’t get out and about very often.”

“Oh.” Z’Aria looked lost in thought for a minute. “Where did you say you were from?”

“I didn’t. Does it matter?”

“I guess not. I remember talking to some kids who warned me about the lady that lived in The Box, who didn’t come out very often.”

“I think I remember overhearing neighborhood children calling my house by that name.”

Z’Aria studied Callie for a long minute. Callie sat patiently through the examination.

“Did I help you with your questions?”

“I might have a few more. You said you went exploring, do you remember the places you went?”

“I sure do, I made bunches of friends. Well, they probably aren’t there now, but it was mostly nice.”

“Well, Z’Aria, perhaps it is time we explore again.”

“You want me to show you the places I found? I can do that, I like being Helpful!”

Callie pointed to the crumpled paper that Z’Aria still gripped tightly in her hand. “Do you mind if I keep that for the moment? There might be further clues we find that it connects to.”

Z’Aria readily returned it. “It’s not really a memory I want to keep too clear, I don’t mind if you hang on to it. You seem nice enough to me.”

Callie raised an eyebrow. “Now, if you’re ready, let’s learn more of what there is to know around here.”

***

They returned to more populated areas after a short walk along one of the streets branching off from Z’Aria’s overpass. Z’Aria was full of casual chatter but no useful information yet, and Callie suppressed a bored sigh.

Z’Aria pointed over to a single-story business building, vaguely medical in appearance. “That’s a pretty creepy building, I used to see parents taking children there all the time. The parents always looked angry going in, and happy coming out. The children looked pretty miserable the whole time, though.”

Callie took a second look, but the parking lot was empty and the building looked closed. “Perhaps we’ll keep walking, it doesn’t appear that there is much there now.”

“There isn’t much anywhere anymore.”

“You keep saying such things. Do you know why?”

“The few left that I’ve met all have different opinions.” They moved on in silence quiet enough to hear the occasional thin scrape from discarded paper, dragged along the concrete by the wind.

They next found a faded and paint-chipped sign next to a path overgrown with scraggly weeds which proclaimed “Constant Conservatory”. Callie studied the path branching off from the paved road they stood upon. “What do you know about this area?”

“It was really well visited a while ago, but no one really goes now. They had this really cool whirlpool thing, but I haven’t looked lately, it might not even be there anymore.”

“Let’s look more closely, shall we?”

They followed the path until it opened into a clearing surrounded by trees, branches growing over the clearing to form interlocking patterns against the starry sky. A deep depression centered in the ground might once have been a “really cool” whirlpool, but was now barely a third full of water that appeared stagnant. Callie watched it for a bit and saw that there did seem to be a very slow circular current tickling the surface occasionally. It was out of touching reach even if she knelt down by the edge.

“Dear Goddess, this isn’t what I remember. So sad.” Z’Aria looked pale and a little ill.

“It seems like it could be repaired with a little work.”

“Sure, but by who? That’s not anything I know how to do.”

“Let’s continue on.”

Z’Aria led the way back to the main road eagerly, restarting her chatter as they traveled more comfortable territory. “Further this way is another neat place, they had tons of nice people – well, most of them were nice – living in this big house. Mostly adults but they had a cool kid there too, she liked to talk to me.”

“If there were many people there, perhaps there will still be some remaining.”

They rounded a sharp curve in the road and stopped suddenly, their path blocked by what appeared to be a solid glass wall. They could see a large building further down the road, but the details were blurred by the distance and thickness of the glass. Z’Aria reached out to first touch the barrier, then knock on it.

Callie watched with interest. “Was this here before?”

“No, I haven’t visited in too long, I guess.” She knocked again, but didn’t look hopeful.

Callie shrugged. “Where do we go from here? I don’t know much more now than when I met you.”

Z’Aria frowned. “Let me think a minute.” She looked off down the road, and so missed the movement behind the glass coming toward them. As it drew nearer it resolved into the shape of a small person.

Callie guessed it was the friend whom Z’Aria had referenced. The kid was carrying a notebook and pen. Callie cleared her throat for Z’Aria’s attention. “We have a visitor of sorts.”

Z’Aria looked behind her and saw the child. She waved her arms happily and yelled “Hi, Iris! I missed you!”

Iris pointed to her ears and shook her head, then opened her mouth and said something that neither Callie nor Z’Aria could hear. Z’Aria took a deep breath in preparation for yelling louder.

“I think Iris has a better solution than shouting, Z’Aria.” Callie looked steadily at her companion until the other finally turned her attention to the kid on the other side, who was holding up a paper with writing on it to her side of the glass where they could read it: Everyone at the House is asleep. They won’t wake up!

“Did you bring paper or something to write with? I only have the paper with which I found you.”

Z’Aria raised her hands helplessly. “I didn’t think to grab anything.”

Callie looked back at the wall. Iris’s paper now read: Help us.

Z’Aria nodded like a dashboard decoration in response, until Callie placed a hand on Z’Aria’s shoulder and effortlessly turned her away from the view through the glass. “Where does one find help for them in a place like this?”

“That’s hard to answer.”

“Unsurprising.”

“I remember someone who helped me once. We’ll try there.”

Getting the bad news out of the way first, here is an incredibly concerning article about the latest battle on the women’s equal rights front. I’ll get sterilized before I’ll live under any “pre-pregnant” laws if they actually start passing them…and if you know anyone who lives in Utah, get them to write the governor to veto!

In more pleasant news, I finally got around to joining the Horror Writers Association. I qualified as an Affiliate member with the publication of “Memory Box” in the Stoker Award-winning Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, by Dark Scribe Press. It slipped off my list of priorities in the busy-ness of the last several months, so I’m glad to have finally taken care of that.

Related to that, I found out this week that the World Horror Convention will be in Austin,Texas for 2011. How cool is that!

For those of you following the Callie posts, I’ll put up a separate page when we get a little farther along in the story, collecting them in one easier-to-read place. In the meantime I’ll post a link collection every 5 entries or so, like now!

Inside the Box
A Box Has No Windows
Opening the Door
At The Bar
Finding help?

She paused again to scan the horizon. It was harder to tell at night, but the street had grown larger and with more commercial and industrial blocks for some time now. She thought the pattern of street lights ahead showed an overpass intersection not far off. She pulled out the paper and unfolded it, holding the sides firmly with both hand to protect against the errant breezes.

It began the way Z’Aria had always envisioned it would:

She accelerates carefully up the ramped access, breathes calmly and evenly as her car makes the first curve with no incident, just like every time, and now she is coming around the second curve, she can see the down ramp, but she’s no longer turning, there must have been an impact pushing her forward yet she can’t hear anything can’t feel can’t see anything but the looming expanse of concrete and such a lovely blue sky, and then there’s nothing but the sky expanding endless and forever and oh if only she could keep soaring up up up and away from crappy jobs and ended relationships and failed expectations and deathtrap overpasses

and it’s still cresting, still peaking, and she must be out in that sky for the end of this. Quickly now, her fingers work of their own accord easily and it’s freefall, baby, as close to space as you can reach, leave the metal casings and the boxes behind and if at no other moment than now own this blessed given body in one glorious endless rushing instant

she can see the concrete far below and the car falling and knows she is falling too but turns face upward to bathe in blue and white and now she is not falling but flying, soaring, cresting as she lives every inch of her skin in full beauty and she matters.

No one could have been more surprised than Z’Aria when she opened her eyes to a sliver of new moon against a backdrop of unknown constellations above her, as she lay sprawled upon the hard ground.

She was operating on the presumption that, however disguised, it was this madhouse’s version of a set of directions. It was perhaps a more bold and rash assumption than she usually made, but this didn’t seem an entirely logical environment. And the paper had shown up as she’d followed Carrie’s directions to be on the move. And there was a similar intersection just ahead. And that was entirely enough doubt and self-justified reflection on her own actions for now; she shook her head slightly and replaced the paper in her pocket. She’d decide what to do next when she learned what the overpass held.

Deserted overpasses at night gave an eerie sensation when one stood near them. Though it wasn’t her first time to learn this, she enjoyed the reminder as she surveyed the soaring concrete pillars and arcs interweaving the night sky above her. She checked the stars quickly to confirm that there were no visible familiar constellations, then turned her attention to ground-level. At the overpass nearest the ground, she saw what appeared to be a homeless crash space nearly hidden in the shadows under the right side of the bridge. When a second scan of the immediate area brought nothing more interesting to inspect, she moved close enough that she could more clearly see what the shadows held.

Whoever squatted here had been around for quite some time. In addition to layers of salvaged cardboard and blankets making up a nest of a bed, there was a little kitchen area, with an overturned milk crate with an unlit Pepsi-can stove set on top, and a closed cooler. Another milk crate held several dumpster-scrounged paperbacks, all stripped covers and crinkled edges and missing pages. A quick glance through the stacks showed mostly romance novels and pulp fantasy. A trash bag next to the books held changes of clothing that hadn’t seen the inside of a laundromat in weeks. No panhandling signs that she could find, however. She scanned up near where the slanted concrete met the underside of the road, and could just make out a bucket covered with a board where it wasn’t easily visible from the ground — probably where the missing book pages ended up when they were done being read.

There was nothing in view that she thought a human could adequately hide behind, and no one in sight, so she moved back far enough from the overpass that she could more widely scan the area. After a few moments she noticed a strange outline on top of the crash barrels at the gore of the exit ramp. No vehicle had passed on any of the deserted intersecting highways since she’d arrived, so she felt no sense of immanent danger as she walked up the long slope. She kept to the inside rail anyway.

The odd outline resolved into definition: a person, stretched out prone on top of several barrels, staring up at the stars overhead. The sand-filled barrels were the mix of worn and newer that indicated an old accident. Before she could check for signs of life the person spoke, the voice recognizably female.

“The Moon won’t be out until later, but I like waiting for Her up here.”

She shuddered at this, now worried that she’d trekked all this way to find another Carrie, which she wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to tolerate twice. “Is that your place under the bridge?”

“Yes.” The person sat up and climbed down off the barrels. She was dressed in enough layers to keep warm against the slight chill of the evening, the clothes at least marginally cleaner than the ones in the trash bag. Curly black hair wisped around her reasonably clean face from where the rest was pulled back into a loose braid. She had the sort of sturdy curvaceous frame often found on healthy farm-raised girls, and hadn’t been indigent long enough to lose her body definition to an inevitably poor diet.

“You have a nice set-up.”

“Thanks!” The woman beckoned her to follow back to the crash pad. “Come on, we can sit on the crates down there and talk. I’m Z’Aria.”

She followed Z’Aria after checking to make sure the paper was still secured. Z’Aria became more energetic the closer to the ground she was, and seemed positively burbling by the time she reached her squat, humming as she arranged the milk crates for better seating.

“I didn’t get any ice today so the sodas aren’t cold, want one? What’s your name? How long are you staying? I don’t usually get visitors, especially not these days.” Z’Aria held out a Sprite.

“Most people call me Callie,” she replied as she took the offered drink. She waited until Z’Aria had opened hers and started in before pulling the tab and taking a sip. “If you want to talk, I certainly have some questions.”

“Oh yay, questions! I like being Answer Girl.”

Callie guessed that Z’Aria would likely end up as irritating as the bartender, given time, but at least for now she seemed more helpful — and more tolerable. She pulled the creased paper out of her pocket.

“Let’s start with this.” She held out the paper to Z’Aria. “What exactly is this? Can you explain why I was able to find you with it?”

Fun Research for this entry:
beverage can stove
gore (road), gore (definitions)

The sign above the door was soot-stained and swayed gently in the same breeze that scattered litter across the landscape. “The Bar” was stenciled in block letters under the dirt: campy yet convenient name, that. Nice balance. Her main interest in the establishment at the moment, title critique aside, was the equally dirty window that seemed to show a light on inside. She angled her head to correct for the possibility that it was simply a reflection from the nearest street lamp, but moving didn’t change the perception of light coming through the window, however dimly.

The other buildings she had checked in her walk along the street had been either locked and dark, or empty and dark. An abandoned house she’d found in a cul-de-sac even had the dining table set with an uneaten meal, though the food had decayed into unrecognizability. A modern Roanoke, right in her own neighborhood. She reached for the solid wooden bar door and was unsurprised to find it unlocked.

The light she’d seen from the window was over the bar itself; the rest of the tavern was as empty as the other buildings. The tables were clean and ready for the customers that didn’t come, lacquered surfaces glowing dimly blue in the after-hours security bulbs set into recesses in the ceiling. A single spot of red over the door she’d just entered marked the only visible exit. She made the obvious choice and moved toward the bar.

Its surface was scarred from visible years of high use. She ran her hands across the rough grooves and scratches, the edges worn so rounded that she was safe from splinters. She cleared her throat to speak out, but the small sound was enough to draw someone from the shadowed doorway behind the bar: an average-sized woman, probably around ten years younger than herself, brown hair pulled tightly into a small bun at the base of her neck, lightly stained white apron covering black pants and matching long-sleeved shirt. The sleeves seemed a bit off, for a bartender, but it isn’t like this one was going to be busy enough to stay warm on the job, from the looks of things.

“Hey there, what’ll you have?”

She looked sharply at the bartender; while the question seemed normal for the setting, it certainly wasn’t for the current situation. The bartender sounded pleasant enough, but there seemed to be something a bit off. Perhaps it was just that she kept avoiding eye contact, staring around at the door and tables with an almost confused look.

“Information, if you’re serving. I’m not really thirsty.”

The bartender blinked a bit, as if the deviation from routine had caught her attention momentarily. She glanced toward her patron and answered, “We might have some of that left on tap.” She set a glass on the bar, as clean as the pristine tables, and drifted back to staring at the entrance.

She examined the bartender closely and thought quickly. There was no mirror behind the bar, another oddity, so she picked up the empty glass and moved enough to one side of the angled bar that she could watch the entrance as well as the bartender. Setting the glass back down in front of her, she learned forward so that she could read the bartender’s nametag.

“So, ‘Carrie’. Rather quiet in here tonight, isn’t it?”

Carrie looked over at the glass, but didn’t raise her gaze. “When it’s this quiet, you can listen to the hum of the electric lights. Sometimes I can hear songs hidden in that sound.”

“And do those songs tell you where your customers have gone?”

“Not really. But I know some of that, too.”

She gripped the handle of her thick glass, briefly, but made her fingers relax. Frustration wouldn’t help this situation get any more understandable. “Where, then?”

“Some of them are sleeping. A few faded away. Most can’t get past the blocks.”

“And where are those?”

“They don’t really look like blocks. But the people don’t visit me anymore.” Carrie picked up a towel and began wiping down the clean bartop.

“Where did they come from?”

Carrie looked up just long enough to meet her eyes, then back down at her empty cleaning. “They aren’t signed by the builder. Maybe they grew.”

She let go of the glass that she couldn’t keep herself from clutching tightly, and folded her hands into her lap. “What about the other people on this street? I haven’t seen a roadblock.”

“They left. Or maybe they were taken. I couldn’t see anything.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Silence has its own songs, have you noticed?” Carrie ceased her wiping motions and stood still, head slightly angled so that one ear was turned upward.

“Yes.” She found herself staring intently at the wooden baseball bat propped against the back wall, and shifted her focus before her thoughts could take further shape. “Where do I learn more?”

“Not here.”

“I noticed.”

“Activity is the currency of the day. Keep moving and you’ll likely find more of the songs you seek. There are nothing but echos left here.”

She took Carrie’s advice immediately, as she wasn’t sure how much longer she was going to be able to sit calmly in that conversation. As she passed under the exit sign, she could hear Carrie ask, “Is an echo its own song or a memory?” and she hurriedly pulled the door shut behind her. At least now she had some clue of just how bizarre things had likely gotten elsewhere.

She decided to continue down the street away from the already-explored areas, though that way showed only more of the same dark and deserted structures. Another gust of wind blew a piece of crumpled paper against her foot and she retrieved it, smoothing it out enough to read under the glow from The Bar’s outside light. She frowned, and read it again. She carefully folded it and placed it into her right pants pocket, then moved off down the road in her chosen direction with more confidence.

The question of how far down the rabbit hole to fall, when working on a creative project, is rather an interesting one. The possibilities are legion for hacking, warping, and weirding the mental processes to create art. However, an artist of whatever stripe often runs up against their own self-boundaries, in such explorations. Sometimes they’re self-imposed limits that should probably be pushed against; other times they might be coping mechanisms for biochemicals that really need to remain at certain levels, thankyouverymuch. Finding the line between what to give to yourself and what to give to that art can be difficult; even for how many artists have gone before, there just aren’t universal roadmaps for making good, deep, provocative art and staying “sane”.

So where do the compromises come in? There’s a wide range of individual choices. We’ve all heard stories of the people who ultimately lost themselves — either the qualities that made their work stand out or their life itself — to the imbalance between care of self and creation of art. And if you aren’t willing to take at least some risks with your own psyche, you’re likely to have a shallow or surface-level artistic end-result.

For me, it’s usually about finding the balance point that allows me to push forward. If I’m going to be doing some crazy internal meanderings, delving into the Shadow self, finding the locked-box memories that are still raw with emotion and creative potential and dragging them out for a look…then if at all possible, other areas in my life should be as stable and least-disruptive as can be. If everything else in my life is chaos, or my own internal landscape is unstable, and I’ve already considered and rejected taking a creative break for whatever reason, then it might be better to steer toward the more “brain candy” level projects. I can keep creating but not get so locked up into my work that I lose myself in the rest of the instabilities. It’s why I don’t believe in the myth that every work must be a Masterpiece For the Ages. Heck, even the master painters of the Renaissance and other eras still took portrait commissions to pay the bills, it wasn’t all frescos and finery.

Sure, they were Really Good portraits, and taking a brain candy creation path during stressful times isn’t license to avoid doing the best work you can, either. But hey, if all you get written during a rough time is a silly zombie story (to pick an Entirely Random Example), you still maintained the creative drive so that it’s available for “more serious” work later. That is definitely good work done.

And when you do give yourself the opportunities and stability to peer into the abyss…how far will you look? How deep can you go and still come back to yourself, or at least a version of you that creates and with whom you can live?

She awoke with the last dream image still in her mind — an empty street, all the buildings along both sides with their doors standing wide into the road, irregularly spaced night lamps illuminating a light mist. More open doors. She knew her subconscious would eventually get its full message through; the obvious interpretation was that it was time for another adventure outside, but it didn’t hurt to wait and confirm such intuition. Reading more would help shift mental gears, and thankfully it seemed like there was nothing currently stopping her from enjoying her book.

The prose was delightfully vivid, and she was enjoying the interweaving of metaphor around jailer and prisoner, parent and child, insanity and the fight for sanity, the power exchange and attempts at same. She caught herself staring through the words after reading the scene with the first escape attempt, her fingers absently stroking the smooth page as her thoughts took her back through the street of open doors. She closed her eyes briefly to erase the image, and returned to the text. After a while she set the book aside. It was engaging her interest but not enough to banish her dream, and she could not ignore the rumblings of her stomach any longer. With a little sigh and a last pat on the cover of the closed thriller, she arose from her couch and went to the kitchen.

She was definitely in the mood for violently chopping vegetables, and not of a mind to wait long for food, so stir-fry was an easy choice. She started a single serving of rice in the cooker, then pulled out a strip steak, an onion, a red and an orange bell pepper, and a bag of fresh-frozen green beans. The slicing and dicing was as viscerally satisfying as it always was, and she found herself humming as she combined the ingredients with her favorite custom sauce blend in the hot skillet. She didn’t recognize the tune, but that had happened before. Just as she felt the stir-fry was ready, she heard the clicking sound of the rice cooker completing its cycle.

Dinner preparations always helped repair her mood, especially when the timing worked out just right. She carefully arranged a perfect circle of pristine white rice on a dark blue dinner plate, and then scattered two scoops of the colorful skillet contents across the top. That, chopsticks, and a simple clear glass of water were all she carried with her to the table in the dining area that filled one end of the kitchen.

After her satiating meal, she did the necessary clean-up — putting the leftovers into a storage container in the refrigerator for lunch tomorrow, rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, giving a quick wipe with a sponge to the counters and stovetop. She decided a dirty martini with her after-dinner reading would complete her evening nicely, and retrieved the appropriate glass from its place next to the cereal bowls in the cabinet. She set the glass on the kitchen counter and went to the refrigerator for the jar of olives. As her fingers closed around the cool cylinder hidden behind other bottles in the door compartment, she brushed something hard under what felt like a piece of tape, and her eyes widened for a brief moment in disbelief. She pulled out the olive jar and turned it around to confirm her suspicion: the key was taped to the back, over the nutrition label so the tape would hold.

One corner of the tape had peeled back where it went too far onto the glass, and her fingers played with the curled edge for a bit before she peeled off the key, taking bits of the label with it. She ran her fingers over the key’s surface but stopped when she encountered the sticky tape residue. Washing it was the first priority then; half a minute at the sink with soap and water and a good rinse were sufficient.

She thought for a moment about having her drink before trying the door, but decided it would make a better end to her adventure than a beginning. She left the glass on the counter to remind herself, but returned the olive jar to its place so it could remain properly chilled. She thought about leaving the key on the counter while she changed clothes, but that had failed her at least once before, so she kept it folded into her palm.

Now dressed more appropriately for the outdoors, she checked the window in the door to ensure that no one was near, but the visible area was as deserted as usual. She tried the key in the door lock. It slid in easily and turned smoothly on the first try, also not a given from past attempts. She didn’t hesitate as she turned the knob.

The door opened onto a shadowed path, made darker by the presence of full night. A cone of light from a street lamp at the end of the way seemed to show that she was down a short alley off a larger road. A brief burst of wind carried a crumpled piece of paper past her ankle. She moved to where she could see the main road better, and wasn’t surprised to find it was the street from her dream. More discarded paper littered the roadscape than she remembered, and there were less lights here, but those were minor variations in detail.

Here, unlike her dream, all the doors were firmly shut.

(crossposted from Words Words Words)

Among the many and ongoing interesting discussions at our home, we’ve been talking about the concept we’re calling “internal logic” for a character. Internal logic here means that, among other things: an action that to an outside observer appears irrational, wrong, or evil, from the internal viewpoint of the character will be a justified, logical, and right action to make. It’s a useful thing to examine for most characters, but especially helpful in creating believable antagonists in a story.

Tolkien got around the need to deeply explore this by creating a world where evil really did exist, and some creatures did things because they were bad evil things to do. In this sort of scenario, you don’t have to worry too much about internal consistency for a antagonist’s actions as long as you have the formula “evil is good”. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s many imitators have generally not done as well as he did, and these days most people who encounter the Evil Overlord stereotype are likely to assign a label of “campy” “trite” or “overdone” to whichever story has the latest iteration of the trope.

Another loophole to spending a lot of time with discovering a character’s internal logic is the “Rendezvous with Rama” effect. For those of you who haven’t read or don’t remember the original story *spoiler alert skip to the next paragraph* an alien ship passes through our solar system, refuels from our sun, and departs. We send a ship out from Earth to explore the large alien ship, see lots of really interesting things, and learn nothing much about the aliens who created the ship. It’s the ultimate story in creating aliens with very alien motives that have little to nothing to do with humans except in passing.*end of spoilers*

Similarly, in Steve’s book Issola, the Jenoine are massively powerful and very alien, doing things that from the view of both the reader and the characters are hard to understand. Since that’s rather the point, we don’t really need to understand further about the Jenoine’s internal viewpoint.

With both of these examples, the unfathomability is the point of both the alien ship and the Jenoine. With characters that come closer to human-like actions and understandings, internal logic considerations become more of a factor. The world from the outside-looking-in and the inside-looking-out are often far different for people, and even for non-POV characters you might need to know something about their internal motivations. So how do you depict this?

One of my own characters tends to organize their environment in ways that to my first impressions seem counter-intuitive. It’s not a way that I would organize things, and sometimes doesn’t seem to make logical sense from my perspective. However, when I ask myself “why would [said character] arrange their things in that way?” I nearly always have an answer that comes to mind that makes sense from the viewpoint and life experiences of the character. Even if the internal explanation for the room arrangement doesn’t make it directly onto the written page, the fact that I as the writer understand why the character does a certain thing means that it’s more likely to reflect that knowledge in little bits of characterization throughout the story that will bring that understanding to the reader.

Read the rest of the entry where Steve shares his thoughts over on our household blog, Words Words Words. You can comment either here or there.

She fumed as she was thrown out of the story abruptly.  These interruptions were beginning to be intolerable.  She had planned to be reading for the afternoon, and now had several empty hours to fill again.  Usually the lack of windows in her rooms didn’t bother her; she was as uninterested in looking out of them as she was in anyone having an easy line of sight into her home.  At this moment, she’d likely be smashing the glass.  With a last frustrated glare at the firmly-closed book cover, she rose from the couch and left her sitting room to check the door in the main room.

Locked, as it usually was, and no key readily available.  The viewing window set into the door at eye-level was no help either.  There was no one out there to see regardless of which angle she peered from.  She dropped back the dark blue curtain covering the door’s window and spent a few moments absently stroking the edge of the velvety fabric as she thought.  When no brilliant epiphanies ignited her mind for the wishing of them, she decided to work off some of her irritation with exercise.  A session with the free weights should tire her out enough that a shower and nap might follow nicely after.

Her exercise area was at the opposite end of the large main room from the door, angled in such a way that someone working out could easily view the media screen on the left wall.  She didn’t load anything to watch.  The exercise mat was clean; she always wiped it down carefully after each session.  Her weights were on a rack against the wall, and her innate design preferences were evident here.  The weights themselves were neatly aligned in the rack and evenly spaced with each other, but there appeared to be neither increasing nor decreasing organization along the shelves in terms of relative weight.  She selected a pair of twenty-pound hand weights from where they lay next to a two-pound barbell plate and set them down at right angles to one corner of the mat.  She stripped down to her bra and the thin linen pants she was wearing, draping the rest of her clothes on a rod she’d attached to the back wall for just that purpose.

Maybe after her nap she’d be able to read again.  The image of her door standing open, her rooms empty, kept appearing in her mind as she worked up a thin sweat.  She tried to manipulate the image to view it from different angles, but it remained stubbornly static.  Empty rooms; an open door.

If she couldn’t read, she’d find where the key was.  Perhaps it was time to venture outside again after all.

Steve and I were talking yesterday about his irritation at the “writer as protagonist” that often shows up in fiction. One of the most famous examples of this (and arguably the single biggest reason for the popularity of the trope) is Stephen King. It can be seen in his earlier works such as The Shining or Salem’s Lot, and continues to show up in several of his works throughout his bibliography (The Dark Half, Secret Windows, Lisey’s Story). Dean Koontz, another huge name in the horror genre, has also written stories (such as Lightning or Mr. Murder) which feature a writer in the main character role. Nor is this trend limited to horror; Kurt Vonnegut and Charles de Lint are two of several authors in the sff genre who have placed writer characters in starring story roles. I’m not as well-read in the more literary fiction end of the spectrum, but I’d be very surprised if a similar pattern wasn’t present there as well. (Feel free to mention and discuss other examples in the comments.)

I’m still a bit unclear on exactly why Steve gets so irritated by writer-protagonists — hopefully he’ll clarify his position a bit more in comments, hehe. I remember from our last chat that he feels like having a writer as a protagonist in a story you’re writing creates too many situations where you are tempted to be clever, or clever-seeming, possibly even superseding the priorities of the story. I think he said it’s the difference between an author being clever in how they tell a story, versus using a technique that says “hey, look at me being clever over here”.

I suppose I can see that point; certainly some of the more forgettable stories I’ve read with writers in the lead role felt rather like what Steve describes. On another hand, some of the more interesting examples of the trope do play around with some neat ideas. Koontz’s Odd Thomas books reference the unreliability of a writer narrator throughout the stories, making references to editing and eliding events even as he tells the tale. de Lint uses writer characters as he does other artists and musicians in his Newford stories, where the act of creative generation unlocks hidden magics in the surrounding world. Vonnegut’s writers don’t seem to be able to self-referentially change the story due to their own writing; I get the impression, reading some of his quasi-auto-biographical fiction works, that his characters are often writers because Vonnegut himself is one. However, Vonnegut didn’t always do the writer-character-as-avatar for himself. I’ve read several references to his famous Kilgore Trout being a poke at Theodore Sturgeon, which amuses me to consider.

Looking at King’s extensive bibliography and publishing history, I’m struck with another thought that’s occurred to me before. So many of his writer characters struggle with aspects of their craft–even to several of them blocked on writing, alcoholics, or otherwise engaged in unstable and self-damaging behaviors–which fascinates me when compared with the fact that, since 1974, there has only been one year that King didn’t publish one or more finished pieces. It doesn’t seem from his observable public output that King, the person, suffers from much in the way of writer’s blocks or dangerous instability preventing his writing. Did much of the potential for that self-destruction get sublimated and exorcised into the more troubled writer-protagonists of his stories?

What do you think about this trope of the writer-as-protagonist? Do you like it? Does it irritate you when you encounter it? Are there similar metaphoric parallels in other artistic disciplines, for you other creative types out there? Let’s discuss!