PurpleCar

Writing is an art. Time-worn cliches about suffering for art aside, as writers, our particular brand of suffering is twofold: being misunderstood and fighting against the clock. Writing isn’t seen as an art by the general public. When someone uses paint and canvas, she is easily identified as an artist. The word “serious” is tacked onto “artist” to connote a painter who sells their work or has reached a minimum level of critical notice. When we call ourselves writers, people “write us off” unless we can spout out a long list of glossy publishing credits, three best sellers and a prize-winning book of poetry. It’s as if writing isn’t permitted to be classified as a legitimate pastime. If you write, people think you must do it for money. If you haven’t earned any money (or at the very minimum, a publishing credit) you’re a hack wasting your time. Poets especially garner the disdain of the “show me the money” public.

As if bad image wasn’t enough, writers fight against time. We can never have enough. The overwhelming majority of writers have other jobs and families that deservingly demand their time. Any artist must be a personal time management/development genious by knowing where the line is between obligations to others and obligations to yourself. Second, any artist must be more disciplined than cloistered nun. When life gets in the way of writing, our judgment in these two vital areas gets clouded. Am I being a bad mother if I send my child to a babysitter so I have time to write? Forget time! How much money should I spend on this? Is it a hobby or am I looking to publish and switch careers?

Today, like everyday, I am juggling many obligations and desires at once. My social media habits of Twittering and IM are (important!) distractions enough. Pile on top the desire to get some journalism bylines and a lucky offer of an on-line article, then throw in some Saturday family time and the need to actually eat, you wind up with a measly 198 words of fiction for the day. Today I’ll catch up, but I’m still under deadline for that potential article (I’ll post a link if it happens -I’m very excited about it). I’ll have to make some decisions on how to spend my precious writing time.

We suffer for our art, just like every artist or artisan in any medium since the beginning of time. It is the human condition. It is part of what makes art profound, what makes it necessary for us to have as a species. As an artist, you have a talent for insight into human behavior that others don’t have. Use it, cultivate it, legitimize it. I give you permission right now to say “I’m a writer.” The only thing you have to do to fulfill that promise is to sit down and write. You are allowed to take time to do that. Write for your future generations. For the world. But most importantly, for yourself. Writers write. Do it today.

Since it is Halloween, let’s talk FEAR.

When idiosyncratic anxieties come to the surface, automatically a character is more interesting. The reader wants to know when and where your main character learned the life-altering fear of deli counters or water balloons. Was she born that way? Was she kidnapped by evil clowns and made to drink through latex?

We’ve all heard of phobias like Arachnophobia (spiders), agoraphobia (being unable to escape), and acrophobia (heights). The Phobia List grows daily. An expert can place a New Latin prefix onto the ending “-phobia” and a new diagnosis is born.

But before you dive in to making your character truly off their rocker, let’s take a minute to look more closely at the difference between mild anxiety and function-freezing fear.

Phobics-awareness.org uses this defintion of a “phobia:”

A specific phobia is an extreme fear of a specific object or situation that is out of proportion to the actual danger or threat. In addition, an individual with a specific phobia is distressed about having the fear, or experiences significant interference in his or her day-to-day life because of the fear.

Ok, that’s poorly worded. In layman’s terms, phobias are fears that cause overreactions to the extreme. What’s extreme? Professionals would qualify a reaction as extreme if it interrupts the regular flow of a person’s life. A total wack job would sell a brand new house if he saw a spider got into the kitchen. Most of us who are merely afraid of spiders would yell for someone else to kill it and just avoid the kitchen for a few minutes.

You may want to give your character a mild case of phobia. Mild phobias are believable for any character, e.g., many children are afraid of thunderstorms, but they are willing to come out from under the bed when the storm subsides.

Extreme phobias are more rare, e.g. the child or adult that refuses to ever leave their basement because a thunderstorm may pop up at any minute. Giving your character a phobia this serious will take over the premise of your book. In fact, this type of “phobia-induced shut-in” character is practically an archetype: the shut-in that has to go out on their front stoop or else the world will end, the murderer escapes, their cat will die, etc. The inherent conflict between inner fears and lofty morals is a time-worn (but awesome!) story premise.

Sidenote: Be aware that a lot of the labels for phobias change and disappear as new science and data collection surfaces. Just be prepared to do a lot of research on that particular diagnosis; start with this article, check out the DSM from the local library, look over the APA’s site, and when googling, click on url’s that are from the .edu or .org domains. Read up, then go for it!

Lots of famous characters in literature and media have specific phobias, some justified (behavior learned from a previous bad experience, eg Superman and kryptonite), some irrational (like Tony Shalhoub’s TV character Monk – obsessive compulsive about germs). Real people like Howie Mandell of “Deal or No Deal” admits that he never shakes hands due to his concern about the spread of harmful substances (a.k.a. “germs”!); Howie does the fist touch instead. Holly Hunter’s new show, Saving Grace, has a character who is very afraid of small birds. Small birds? The rest of the fictional police department and all of the viewers are dying to know how that one came about.

Give your main characters a little chink in their superhero armor: give ‘em an irrational fear of stuffed fuzzy bunnies. When the opponents come for them, they won’t be armed with semi-automatics, they’ll have raided the local toy store for enough fluffy cuteness to make even grandma gag. Now there’s a scene I’d love to read!

Please comment! Tell us about your fears *ahem* your character’s fears. We can give each other ideas. With Nanowrimo starting on Thursday, ideas are gold. If you do write something for this meme, please return here and leave a comment with the link to your blog or website where you posted your excerpt. Thanks!

UPDATE:  Take2max had the subject of phobias in her Sept. 21st Friday Meme that has one or two links for examples (I discovered her entry after I

had written this post.  Just goes to show you, a little wackiness makes for memorable characters!) 

WOW, are the Nanowrimo.org forums are already ablaze with posts. I can’t keep up (especially since it loads so slowly).

For the uninitiated, National Novel Writing Month is November of every year. We have an on-line community at nanowrimo.org., but the community is spilling out all over in interesting ways.

Firstly, let’s talk forums. My favorite discussion thread forums at nanowrimo are Character and Plot Realism Q & A and Plot Doctoring. I like to scan and respond; I don’t post many questions myself. The level of expertise in some of the reply threads is astounding, e.g. I took two years of Latin but I couldn’t have conjugated the fictitious term “New Catholics,” as writer dingospleen did in response to writer Kateness’s question.

Secondly, I have a TON of work to do on my plot in the next few days before Nano begins. Unfortunately, I don’t have long periods of time to work, especially not in quiet. But the plot will come; I really wish I had time to make Nanowrimo videos. 

Yes, a process that once depended soley on whether or not a writer had enough ink, paper and ideas is now being expanded by next generation media. Viddler has a Nanowrimo group that anyone can join, where writers talk about their projects and vent about the stress, but what is really interesting on the Nanowrimo video front is that amateur book videos are showing up on YouTube. Mostly, the videos are mashup trailers of still images, music and text, but they are great examples (here and here too) of how social media is becoming integrated in the creative process. Some of the young Nanowrimo participants on YouTube are especially attuned to Web 2.0 applications and their use in stirring interest in their projects and inspiration in themselves. Check ‘em out if you have time.

Do you NanoWriMo? Got a video? Comment and link. And don’t forget to tell us your username and your fave forums!