A Story is a Promise Blog

Notes on the Film A Dangerous Method - Ideas in Conflict

2012-02-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

This movie about Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Sabina, a patient of Jung's, illustrates that conflict in a film does not have to revolve around action. Here the most heated conflict revolves around ideas.

Jung is a disciple of Freud, who has invented psychoanalysis. Freud's goal is to ensure that psychoanalysis be taken seriously as a scientific method of understanding people through an understanding of the subconscious and the unconscious. When Jung begins to express an interest in a collective unconscious and mysticism, Freud sees this as something that will undermine his life's work.

Each man is committed to his ideas and their primacy. Neither can walk away from the conflict between their ideas.

When Jung begins to treat a young Russian Jew named Sabina with the new talking cure, he finds himself attracted to her (as he is not to his wealthy, genteel wife). When Jung and Sabina become lovers and rumors about that begin to surface, Freud now has a weapon he can use to discredit Jung, and by discrediting Jung, his ideas as well.

But he does not.

A thoughtful, intelligent film directed by David Cronenberg.

Years ago I reviewed a generic action film. The Big Bad in the film had hired mercenaries, some right-wing idealogues and some professional soldiers for hire. I pointed out he could develop conflict between these two groups based on their different mind-sets. A small point, but it would have given what was generic characters some flavor.

When characters embody powerful ideas in conflict, and a storyteller finds a way to bind those characters together, that kind of conflict naturally and forcefully comes off the page.

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A fourth edition of Bill Johnson's writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle.

Mark Twain, by Robert H. Hirst Interview on Authors Road

2012-02-10T00:56:00.000-08:00

To our knowledge, no author in history has managed to write and publish new, best sellers that span a career of nearly a century and a half. But Mark Twain has. His first short-story (1865), The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, is still read in schools today. And in 2010, the UC Berkeley Mark Twain Papers & Project published the first of three volumes of Twain’s critical edition autobiography – a monumental work that Twain embargoed from publishing for 100 years after his death. Granted, there have been several autobiographies published before this, but the materials those were drawn from were abridged and censored.

No one anticipated what would happen with this first volume. Initial plans were made for a print run of 2,000. Before a year was up over half-million copies were sold, and world demand was still going strong.

And for good reason. Critics and scholars may argue over who is the most important American of letters, but the world knows who is the most endearing and original. Years ago, when we were in Mumbai, India we were constantly reminded by excited residents that Mark Twain had spoken there long before our arrival.

We are so very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet and talk with Robert H. Hirst, General Editor of the Mark Twain Papers & Project. For nearly half a century Hirst has devoted his professional life to the phenomenon of Twain, a history that continues to grow with the discovery each week of yet new letters and papers.

We know you’ll enjoy and learn from this remarkable interview.

George & Salli

Author's Road

Northwest Author Series Features Bill Johnson

2012-02-03T13:47:00.001-08:00

Bill Johnson offers a presentation based on his writing workbook, A Story is a Promise, for Christina Katz' Northwest Author Series in Wilsonville on February 26th. The fourth edition of his book offers new, unique tools for creating vibrant story characters that he'll explore in his presentation.

The Northwest Author Series is an educational series of author workshops put on for the benefit of aspiring writers of all levels from Wilsonville, Oregon and the surrounding areas. All of the authors who present for us are:

* residents of the Pacific Northwest
* traditionally published authors
* experienced writing workshop teachers

The Northwest Author Series is sponsored by The Wilsonville Public Library and The Wilsonville Friends of the Library and hosted by Christina Katz.

Christina's first book, Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids, was sold at the Willamette Writers conference in 2005 and published in 2007. Her second book in 2008, Get Known Before the Book Deal, was the first book to break down the steps of platform development for aspiring authors, a topic that has become extremely popular in the past few years. Her third book is The Writers Workbook.

http://northwestauthorseries.wordpress.com/about/

More about Christina.

Author's Road Features Laurie King

2012-02-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

We've been on the Authors Road for five months now, driving over 2,000 miles and interviewing 20 writers. As you might expect we have begun to see patterns in the ways and styles of this unique species: the American Writer. Some are like firecrackers, some like slow burning coal seams, and some are time-bombs that surprise us with their explosive insights days after we’ve interviewed them. Laurie R. King is a writer who, for us, did all three pyrotechnics.

King grew up in the San Francisco and Seattle areas, making friends with books as she rolled like a tumbleweed from one place to another. She worked her way through UC Santa Cruz and The Graduate Theological Union to her Masters degree before deciding that continuing to study for her doctorate was ill advised with young children and a soon-to-retire husband. (She was later granted an honorary doctorate from GTU). Her studies had revealed that books were NOT written by God as she had believed as a young girl, so she turned her hand to writing.

Laurie R. King first introduced her readers to the very modern detective, Kate Martinelli, then helped kick the tweed knickers of the stodgy Sherlock Holmes into the 20th Century with her popular Mary Russell series. In addition to these two series, she has added yet more inventive and enjoyable novels. We can all thank her for this magic of the written word - the words that Salli believes are written by a true writing goddess - and the spells she conjures in her many works.

Laurie agreed to meet us one sunny coastal afternoon in her daughter’s backyard in Santa Cruz, California. And there, in the growing afternoon shadows, she enchanted us with her honesty, craft, and the freedom of her story-telling skills. Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re proud to present our interview with the award-winning writer, Laurie R. King….

George & Salli

And stay tuned for our next writer: Mark Twain!

http://www.authorsroad.com/

A Bridge from Facts to Fiction, By Stephen Gallup

2012-01-29T11:43:00.000-08:00

Story ideas come from real life. Even when we are inventing new worlds and new dimensions, the events we set forth in words follow recognizable logic and have their origin in lived experiences.

Many writers feel drawn to subjects that are obviously autobiographical. As a memoirist, I think that’s fine. But over time that kind of writing can create a very deep groove. Here’s a suggestion for venturing out of it.

If you feel that the character you are writing about is too familiar, stop and make a list of descriptive phrases about yourself. Then pick a feature and change it. Make that new trait central to your character.

For example, I love music, but due to a few poor decisions along the way I cannot with any honesty call myself a musician. The phrase not musical showed up in my list. So I tried my hand at writing about a violinist. As sometimes happens, this character began to take charge of his story. I was pleased to see that he had the wisdom to decide differently when faced with pressures that might have pulled his career off track.

Encouraged, I tried again, this time writing from the perspective of the opposite gender. That seemed to turn out even better than the first try.

These exercises were my first step in returning to the craft of fiction, which I had set aside for many years while doing another kind of writing. And I believe in their own way they contain as much truth as anything else.

Stephen Gallup is the author of a memoir, What About the Boy? A Father's Pledge to His Disabled Son (2011). He blogs at fatherspledge.com.

Author's Road Interview Features Verlena Orr

2012-01-24T17:56:00.001-08:00

We’re pleased to bring you the first author interview with one of our favorite poets, Verlena Orr.

Verlena grew up on an Idaho wheat farm where she learned to recite Shakespeare while driving cattle on horseback. Twice nominated for a Pushcart, she’s published three chapbooks, two full-length books, and her work has appeared in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies. She has lived in Portland since 1963, and received her MFA from University of Montana.

We interviewed Verlena on a rainy afternoon in June. She was patient while we set up, warmed up and moved around, chatting easily about life, writing and the many paintings friends have made of her.

She nestled in front of her computer in her cheerful Las Vegas tee shirt and wrapped in "Aunt Eunice's Writing Stole," and then we began.

We hope you will be as patient with our first efforts as Verlena was. We learned a lot, and Verlana gave a great interview. What she has to say more than compensates for our sometimes bumbling efforts.

Click on this link to view the interview.

Felice Lesser's Funding the Arts Semifinalist in Screenplay Competition

2012-01-19T23:45:00.000-08:00

We have some very exciting news to share! In addition to our stage play of FUNDING THE ARTS, our screenplay (with the same name), has been moving along a parallel course. It is now one of 25 Semi-Finalists (out of a field of 3264 entries) in the Free Screenplay Competition, the winner of which will be announced on February 15th. We are thrilled to have gotten this far, and are keeping our fingers crossed for the final round!

Our upcoming activities also include a lecture-demonstration at Norwalk Community College (CT) on March 6th, and we have just begun planning a fifth educational residency in Idaho (anticipated for 2012-13).

Please visit our website: www.fldt.org, for the most up-to-date information on our company, and "like" the Felice Lesser Dance Theater on Facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Felice-Lesser-Dance-Theater/126805794055208)

Sincerely,

Felice Lesser, Director
Felice Lesser Dance Theater

About Us
The Felice Lesser Dance Theater is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions to the company are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law. Checks may be mailed to the company at the address below:

The Felice Lesser Dance Theater
484 West 43rd Street #9T
New York, NY 10036

Making It in Tough & Changing Times, A One-Day Writing Conference, January 28th PDX

2012-01-18T13:05:00.000-08:00

At last, a practical one-day conference filled with just the information that you need to propel your writing career to the next level and muscle your way to publication. We’ll cover everything from creating potent sentences and writing irresistible query letters, to writing killer openers and making it as a writer in a media-saturated world.

Times: 8:30-5:30

Location: Tabor Space, 5441 S.E. Belmont

Keynote by Christina Katz The Prosperous Writer: Tips For Navigating The Gig Economy

Workshops: One Strong Sentence After Another, Monica Drake; Killer Openers, Jessica Morrell; Anatomy of a Scene, Jessica Morrell; Paring it Down to the Truth, Emily Whitman; What Editors Want, Adam O’Connor Rodriguez of Hawthorne Books. (Includes feedback to participants on their query letters.)

Panel/Q & A: Risk It To Get Published with Christina Katz, Jessica Morrell, and Adam O’Connor Rodriguez

Cost: $99 includes continental breakfast and lunch

(Refund given in case of cancellation due to weather)

To register: Contact Jessica Morrell at jessicapage@spiritone.com or 503 287-2150

Space is limited so early registration is recommended.

Payments can be made by check or through Paypal.

Mailing address is: Jessica Morrell, P.O. Box 820141, Portland, OR 97282-1141
View the schedule at: http://www.jessicamorrell.com/

The Northwest Author Series Presents Karen Karbo on Passions Into Paychecks: Make a Living without A Brand

2012-01-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

In 1990 Karen Karbo quit her full time job and has been making a living as a writer ever since. Known for her quirky wit and broad range of interests, she’s done it all without a “brand.” In this lively presentation, Karbo will discuss how to parlay your interests into a paycheck while building an eclectic body of work, and also offer tips on creating a platform rooted in your own personality.

Award-winning writer Karen Karbo has penned it all: nonfiction, novels, memoir, short stories, essays, articles, and reviews. How Georgia Became O’Keeffe is the third and final nonfiction installment in what she calls her “kick ass women trilogy.” How to Hepburn was published in 2007, and The Gospel According to Coco Chanel was published in 2009. Each of her three novels was a New York Times Noteable Book of the Year. Her 2004 memoir, The Stuff of Life, about the last year she spent with her father before his death won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Non-fiction. Karen grew up in Los Angeles, California and now lives in Portland, Oregon.

For more info, please contact The Wilsonville Public Library at (503) 682-2744.

Northwest Author Series
January 29, 2012
Location: The Wilsonville Public Library in the Oak Room
Time: 3:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Cost: $5.00 at the door
Door prizes: Two copies of How Georgia Became O’Keeffe

Story Notes - The Hunger Games

2012-01-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins offers an example of how to tell a story about a familar if alien world, here a future United States divided into mini-states and ruled with an iron fist by the Capitol. This kind of story requires raising questions and introducing information about this new world that draws an audience forward to want to know more. This is easy to do, hard to do well. The following is a review of the opening pages of the novel.

In the beginning...

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.

The novel starts rooted in the POV of Katniss, a young girl. The opening conveys subtle information about the world, waking up cold, a mattress with a canvas cover, the question, what is the reaping? It also raises character questions, who is Prim? Why is she having bad dreams? What do her dreams have to do with the reaping?

Next...

I prop myself up on one elbow. There's enough light in the bedroom to see them. My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother's body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim's face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.

This conveys a stronger sense of place, but more questions. Why does the mother appear 'beaten-down'? What happened to the once beautiful mother? Who is this 'they' who commented on the mother's former beauty?

Continuing...

Sitting at Prim's knees, guarding her, is the ugliest cat in the world. Mashed in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the color of rotting squash.

This conveys a description of a cat, but also a subtext about this world, that pets fend for themselves in a harsh world. There's also the subtext here that the narrator does not like this cat.

Continuing...

Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Or at least he distrusts me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home.

Again, another question: why did the narrator feel compelled to kill the cat? With the title, Hunger Games, the reason is implied; one more mouth to feed.

Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed.

That confirms the why the narrator wanted the kitten dead, but raises another question: why is she responsible for feeding her mother and sister?

But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he's a born mouser. Even catches an occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

This conveys the narrator's desire to make her little sister happy. That a pet is fed entrails and not cat food again suggests something about this familiar yet alien world.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

There's a subtext here that in this harsh world, accomodations are made, but only grudingly.

This is the first page of the book. It continues with the narrator getting up and ready to go out hunting, and relates that she lives in District 12 that is crawling with coal miners. Again, questions are raised that will soon be answered, and the answers will raise new questions.

The author next relates that District 12 is surrounded by an electrified fence to protect the inhabitants from wild dogs and other wild animals. District 12 is sounding more like a gulag, which it comes out that it is for most of its inhabitants, but the narrator is willing to go beyond that fence.

Suzanne Collins demonstrates a deft touch in introducing this narrator in a harsh world, but also showing her inititive to not be fenced in. Novels that lack this clearly defined, carefully crafted character and plot and scene development from their opening lines risk being static and dramatically inert.

Quick Cuts - Story Notes on the Movie Take Shelter

2012-01-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

This movie demonstrates a central issue of storytelling, narrative tension. I define narrative tension as the tension a character feels to resolve or fulfill some issue, and the tension that increases as that character takes action. Romeo in Romeo and Juliet is a great example of narrative tension, because everything he does to act on his love for Juliet puts him in deeper conflict with his clan.

Novels that lack a main character in a state of narrative tension are often episodic, a series of events but lacking a clearly defined central conflict.

In Take Shelter, the main character is a blue collar worker of 35. The film opens with him standing outside in the rain, but the rain drops include oil. As the film continues, he has nightmares about a powerful, deadly storm, and also attacks on himself and his six year old, deaf daughter. But then he has a nightmare while awake. Are the nightmares a premonition of something looming or symptoms of mental illness? At 35, his mother began to experience the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

To save his family, he excavates around a tornado shelter using equipment he's borrowed from his job. This gets him fired, just before his deaf daughter is slated for an operation to restore her hearing. But he can't stop what he's doing if it means the safety of his family.

This film's main character is always in a state narrative tension that is accessible to the audience. He fears he's descending into mental illness, but if he's not, how does he save his family? But his actions to save his family threaten to tear his family apart and seem to prove he's mentally ill to those around him.

When he confesses what's happening, his loving wife helps him get through the aftermath of a storm, and they take a family vacation to a beach before he'll be put on a regime of drugs and institutionalization. While the father is on a beach with his daughter, the fear in her eyes causes him to look up. The monster storm he's seen in his visions is now approaching. As his wife comes out onto a vacation rental deck, she realizes the rain is mixed with oil.

That ends the film and answers the central question of the story, but raises more questions about how and why he was having these premonitions and why they manifested as nightmares about him and his daughter being attacked.

This film also demonstrates the difference between horror and psychological terror. In a typical Hollywood horror film, there are often a series of 'boo' moments, where some sudden action is designed to scare the audience. Here there's a creeping sense of terror that is transferred from the main character to the viewers of the film. I found the film much creepier and more horrifying than most of the horror films I've seen in the last ten years. A well-made, well-acted if unsettling film.

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A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle.

Quick Cuts - Capsule Movie Reviews by Bill Johnson

2012-01-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

These capsule reviews of current movies offer a basic overview of what these stories did (or didn't do) to engage an audience.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher

This American version of the Swedish novel has opening credits that suggest the movie will be about S&M and bondage. More so than the Swedish film of the novel, this movie is more visual and more compressed. This movie also does a better job of conveying Lisbeth's journey, from anti-social misfit to a woman potentially capable of being in a loving relationship. The Swedish film ended on a strictly plot note, which undercut the power of that film. It left Lesbeth's journey unfulfilled.

The journalist Mikael Blomkvist operates to solve the mystery of the missing girl with Lisbeth. In the novel (and the Swedish film) his goal of saving the magazine he helped found comes across much more strongly.

I'm more removed from the novel than when I did the early capsule review, but I still found Lisbeth to be the more interesting, compelling character.

The movie does have a quality of coming fully to life when Mikael and Lisbeth start working together.

Reducing a novel with a complex web of characters and plot threads is difficult. Fincher and his screenwriter, Steven Zaillian, got the job done.

Sherlock Holmes, a Game of Shadows

Unfortunately, this movie takes the title too far. For most of of the movie, it's not clear what Moriarty is trying to accomplish in the shadows. The result is there's a lot of beautifully staged action, but for most of the film, no sense of an underlying point. What Moriarty is trying to accomplish comes out at the end of the film, but too late to make this a powerful story or an engaging plot (although viewers with an understanding of history will guess what Moriarty is aiming for).

The film does have the easy camaraderie of its two stars.

The Guard

On the surface this film is a fish out of water story, with the fish being an ivy-league, African-American FBI agent sent to Ireland to help intercept a drug shipment. Circumstances force him to work with a braggart, racist cop. The FBI agent can't stand the man, but he also wonders if his seemingly uneducated, vulgar partner with a large sexual appetite for hookers is really much smarter than he lets on.

The plot is generic but the storytelling is organic. What happens, and why, is based on who these two men are, and the choices they make based on who they are. Different characters would change the outcome of the plot, versus action films where the characters are in the service of the plot.

A pleasure to watch.

The Skin I Live In

posted 12/6/2011

This film by Pedro Almodovar demonstrates how a shift in time and perspective can affect an understanding of a story. The film begins with a scientist/surgeon living in a secluded mansion and keeping a beautiful young woman in an isolated, locked room. A housekeeper suggests it would be best if the young woman were dead. Then, a man in a costume shows up, the wastrel son of the housekeeper. He ties her up and rapes the young woman, while commenting that she looks just like 'her.' The surgeon comes in and shoots and kills the rapist.

The film now shifts to six years earlier. The surgeon is at a dinner party with an unstable daughter. It comes out that her mother recently died. Unnoticed by her father, she goes out with another young man. He expects this is for sex, but when she resists, he panics, hits her, tidies up her clothing, and flees. The father finds his daughter, who has undergone a psychotic break and later commits suicide.

He captures the young rapist and performs a sex change operation. Over the years, continued operations turn the young man into the beautiful young woman seen at the beginning of the film.

This explains who the young woman is, but it also completely changes the perspective on what this is a story about, that it is a kind of modern day Frankenstein story.

Odd but compelling film.

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A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V020N0

Authors Road Features Carola Dunn

2012-01-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

Carola Dunn

Authors Road

Our first interview after leaving Portland was with Carola Dunn, author of the popular Daisy Dalrymple cozy mystery series. She is English by birth, and although she has lived in the U.S. a good many years she still sounds delightfully British. We joke that we could just listen to her read the phone book with that lovely accent.

Carola is the author of over 50 books, and began her career in the late 70s with a Regency romance written longhand at the kitchen table. She sold her first book and generally stayed under contract for the next 15 years. She then turned to mystery, moving her stories to the Golden Age between the two World Wars in England. She says that “my characters are real to me” and that she doesn’t want to “live with nasty people in her mind” so that generally even her villains are nice people. She researches by Internet, book, letter and travel. The result? Characters that readers want to spend time with, places they can really see, and factual historic details to tickle the mind.

And we’re pleased to note that her latest Daisy Dalrymple novel, Gone West, comes out mid-January.

We hope that you’ll cozy-up with a warm blanket and a cup of tea to listen to our conversation with Carola. She says that “There are three things you need to be a writer: luck, talent and persistence.” We hope you’ll enjoy seeing how that fits with Carola’s writing life.

George, Salli & Ella

Author's Road Features Lawson Inada

2012-01-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

Lawson Inada
Writer # 10

Happy New Year!

We are so pleased to start the new year by sharing with you an inspiring interview with poet Lawson Inada, Oregon’s 5th poet laureate who proceeded Oregon’s current poet laureate, Paulann Peterson.

Our interview with Inada is proof of how a good poet can make lemonade from lemons. Whatever could go wrong the day of his interview did, starting with giving wrong directions and his getting lost, having to change venues, unusual and disruptive road noises and a blazing sun.

The quality of the resulting film from our interview may leave a lot to be desired, but we think you’ll agree, nothing stops or even slows Lawson down as he finds joy and meaning in every nuance and around every corner, and how his voice weaves wonderful stories.

Lawson is a Sensei, born in Fresno, California in 1938, and four years later he and his family were confined to concentration camps until the end of the war. After the war and following his college career he began teaching poetry at Southern Oregon University in 1966. In 2006 he was named Oregon’s poet laureate and won Willamette Writers' Lifetime Achievement Award.

Like the other poets we’ve interviewed, Verlena Orr and Paulann Peterson, Lawson is hypnotic to watch and listen to as he and they speak, often using their hands to orchestrate the music of their words, and always using their minds to paint the vivid colors of a good and universal story. They are our bards, the people entrusted with the art of storytelling since our earliest times on this earth.

George, Salli & Ella

The Authors Road

Fourth Edition of A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling Available

2012-01-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle.

This new edition offers new, unique tools for creating vibrant story characters and recognizing some of the main flawed character types in novels: characters who are emotionally numb, stuck, or too wounded to act.

If you've ever been told your minor characters are more interesting than your main character, this workbook will give you the tools you need to transform your writing.

The book is available on several other e-book formats--including Nook, Kobo, and Sony, and Smashwords.

The book is also available as a trade paper back via Amazon.

FINDING THE RIGHT CRITIQUE GROUP

2011-12-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

When people call the Willamette Writers office and ask about finding a critique or support group, I suggest they consider that there are three basic types of groups: support, light critique, and heavy critique.

A Support group is for writers to come together and encourage each other to write. It might include social time for a meal or visiting.

A Light Critique group could have specific rules about offering a critique: a time limit for comments, a rule about starting or ending with a positive comment, time limits on how long someone can respond to a critique, etc.

There is no one convention about how a light critique group functions. Author Orson Scott Card has created a system he calls a Wise Reader to help get useful feedback. It can be used for light critique.

Heavy Critique groups are often authors published by a mainstream presses who meet to get feedback from professional peers. This kind of group is often a no-holds barred session, where an author just wants an unvarnished critique of a manuscript from writers with skills they admire or respect.

Heavy Critique groups tend to form and go off the radar, since such groups don't often revolve around mentoring or critiquing unpublished authors.

I get the occasional call from an unpublished author who only wants to be critiqued by New York Times best-selling authors. I can't help.

I suggest that authors try two or three different groups to find a group that meets their needs. Sometimes personalities will clash, or a group will have a too narrow focus (mysteries only, or horror, or fantasy).

Some groups start out as light critique groups and become support groups or social groups. That can meet the needs of some, but not others. This can also happen if too many of the members of a group are not consistently offering new work for critique.

Some groups will have authors who become defensive or angry when they are critiqued. This can become a question of whether an author is getting enough valuable feedback to figure out the personalities in a group. If someone gives a great critique but only wants vague praise in return, figure out if that works for you. Some people join groups for an audience, not a critique.

Some authors will have well-defined and defended boundaries around what they consider acceptable in a critique, and consequences for those who violate their boundaries.

In theater, you'll come across guided critiques when plays have public readings. A moderator can sit on the stage with a playwright and field questions. Questions that are considered outside the feedback considered appropriate are turned aside by the moderator. The goal is to ensure the playwright gets useful feedback and not unchecked commentary about how another playwright would rewrite his or her play.

This format is used for the script reading series held at the Willamette Writers conference.

Finding the right group can be difficult, but the rewards can be great.

That can also mean moving on when the rewards aren't there.

You'll know you're in the right group when you find it.

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Bill Johnson is the office manager of Willamette Writers and the author of A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V020N0

2011-12-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

Northwest Author Series

A Story is a Promise: The Essentials of Storytelling

I'm doing a presentation at Christina Katz' Northwest Author Series in Wilsonville on February 26th. I'll be speaking about the story is a promise principles, illustrating them with the openings to novels like The Hunger Games and George R R Martin's Game of Thrones.

The Northwest Author series takes place the third Sunday of each month during the school year and features traditionally published authors. The size of the typical audience is 30-50 writers.

Christina set up the series. Her first book, Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids, was sold at the Willamette Writers conference in 2005 and published in 2007. Her second book in 2008, Get Known Before the Book Deal, was the first book to break down the steps of platform development for aspiring authors, a topic that has become extremely popular in the past few years. Her third book is The Writers Workbook.

The Northwest Author Series is sponsored by The Wilsonville Public Library and The Wilsonville Friends of the Library; info, http://northwestauthorseries.wordpress.com/2011-2012-media/

The Authors Road, John Steinbeck

2011-12-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

John Steinbeck
Author #9

Next week marks the 43rd anniversary of the death of John Steinbeck, arguably one of America’s greatest writers and author who won almost every literary award available, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. As fellow authors, we can tell you that Steinbeck’s writing drives us nuts because it’s so damn good.

When we began this journey to meet America’s authors, we bought a truck we named “Rosinante Tres.” The first was, of course, Don Quixote’s faithful nag, and the second Rosinante was Steinbeck’s truck and camper in his Travels with Charley.

We drove Rosinante Tres to the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California where we met Herb Behrens. In a basement office crowded with Steinbeck photos and memorabilia Herb shared his passion on the subject of Steinbeck. And before you ask, yes, in this interview, Herb tells where Charley is buried.

With particular thanks to the National Steinbeck Center for arranging this interview, and to Herb for taking the time to enthusiastically share his knowledge – we are pleased to share with you this special interview in time for the Holidays.

And stay tuned. Our next interview is a spirited chat with Oregon’s fifth poet laureate, Lawson Inada.

Happy Holidays to All!

George, Salli & Ella

The Authors Road

Christina Katz Speaks to Willamette Writers

2011-12-12T12:47:00.001-08:00

January 3rd, speaker Christina Katz, Topic: New Year, Fit Career: Five Flabby Habits To Lose & Five Healthy Habits To Keep

Christina is the author of three books from Writer's Digest: The Writer's Workout,Writers Workout Katz Get Known Before the Book Deal, and Writer Mama. Her writing career tips and parenting advice appear regularly in national, regional, and online publications. A "gentle taskmaster" over the past decade to hundreds of writers, Christina's students go from unpublished to published, build professional writing career skills, and increase their creative confidence over time. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago and a BA in English from Dartmouth College. A popular speaker on creative career growth, Christina presents for writing conferences, literary events, MFA writing programs, and libraries. She is the creator and host of the Northwest Author Series in Wilsonville, Oregon, where she lives with her husband, her daughter, and far too many pets. Learn more at http://www.ChristinaKatz.com.

All Portland meetings are held at the Old Church, SW 11th and Clay (1422 SW 11th). Doors open at 6:30 pm; the speaker or panel starts at 7 pm. Meetings are free to members of Willamette Writers and students; guests of WW members are $5. Non-members pay $10 to attend meetings. Refreshments are served.

Read more about Writers Faire in
Mary Andonian's column at http://www.willamettewriters.com/1/PMeetingColumn.php.

Author's Road Posts Jack London Review

2011-12-08T21:44:00.001-08:00

Author # 8: Jack London

We’re pleased to introduce you to the first in our series that could be named, “The Dead Authors Society” – but we’re not that tacky. In addition to the exciting and very lively authors we’ve been interviewing, we realized there is a chance to also learn from experts on some of our deceased writers as well. In the month ahead we will also share our interviews with experts on John Steinbeck and Mark Twain.

But now, let us re-introduce you to a dynamic writer, listed by Writers Digest as one of the 20th Century’s 100 Most Influential Writers. Oyster pirate, boy socialist, self-educated, adventurer, gold prospector, seal hunter, novelist, and the world’s first millionaire artist, Jack London’s brief but brilliant and tumultuous life is legendary, and he’s been an inspiration to countless writers for the last century.

For fourteen years, Louis Leal, a volunteer at the Jack London State Park, has studied London’s life and art and shared his insights with the millions of visitors to The Jack London State Historic Park Wolf outside of Glen Ellen, California, less than two hours north of San Francisco.

Louis agreed to be interviewed for our series, and we met him at London’s cottage on a beautiful autumn day. Like so many others, we were enthralled with his stories and insights, and excited to be able to share with you. Go to www.authorsroad.com.

Also, if you’re interested in reading an article about us that appeared in the San Jose Mercury and Pacifica Tribune, go to http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_19435216?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com .
And today, Salli participated on behalf of Authors Road in a fun bloggin experience at JungleRedWriters.com

Stay tuned friends! Our next interviews to be posted will be with Oregon’s 5th Poet Laureate, Lawson Inada; and with Herb Behrens on John Steinbeck at the National Steinbeck Center.

Salli, George and Ella
The Authors Road

Authors Road Interview Features Karen Cushman

2011-11-22T13:09:00.001-08:00

Her books have also won the Carl Sandburg Award for Children's Literature, Best Books List of School Library Journal and for the American Library Association, Golden Kite Award, Bay Area Book Reviewer's Award for Children's Literature, Ten Best Books list of Parent's Choice Foundation, and the Cuffie Award from Publisher's Weekly.

Interviewing Karen felt like talking to an old friend. She is kind, patient and bright. And just in case any fans out there are reading this, she really wants a tee shirt that says "I'm a writer. I don't cook and I don't clean."

Karen Cushman is the author of seven historical YA novels - many of them award winners - with an eighth due out soon. My daughter Cassidy and I read most of her books when Cassidy was in Middle School, and we both loved each novel. Our favorites were set in Medieval England and were filled with the sights, sounds and smells of everyday people during those extraordinary times. Her female characters are strong, beautifully flawed and transcend their own imperfections as well as societal constraints. The stories are interesting, well-researched and darned good reads.

Karen has two master's degrees, one in Museum Studies, which she also taught at John F. Kennedy University, and the other in human behavior. Her Stanford undergraduate degree is in Greek and English. She grew up writing, but stopped from the time she was in college until she was nearly 50. Although she was a 'late bloomer,' she has wasted no time in winning awards - including a Newbery Honor and Newbery Medal for her first two books.

Read More and View The Video Interview

Writing Query Letters by Elizabeth Lyon

2011-11-20T23:26:00.000-08:00

Emigrant Online Posts Review of Lizzy Shannon's A Celtic Yearbook

2011-11-16T00:27:00.000-08:00

Orgeon author pens a year’s worth of Irish traditions

Lizzy Shannon.

Oregon resident Lizzy Shannon is celebrating her Irish heritage in style by releasing A Celtic Yearbook, a guide for everything Irish divided into thirteen chapters corresponding to the thirteen Druidic months.

Shannon’s varied works span live stage plays, science fiction novels, short stories and a children's Japanese picture book to name but a few genres. Within the pages of A Celtic Yearbook, readers can enjoy her unique take on Irish festivals, folklore, recipes, superstitions, traditional remedies and much more.

Born in Belfast but now celebrating her ninth year as a US citizen, in Northern Ireland she learned mostly British history in her early studies and did not initially realize the rich Irish heritage from which she had come.

“It wasn’t until I emigrated to the United States that I found out people loved Ireland,” she told the Sherwood Gazette recently. “I said, ‘why can’t you be Irish and British’? And I am.”

Her own family research has revealed many things; one eureka moment being the discovery that her father’s uncle was a man named Ernest Blythe, a member of the Irish Republican Army who worked closely with Eamon de Valera.

Other parts of her heritage which have made it into the book are diary entries from her late mother, Maureen, including a passage detailing how to properly clean a house, Irish style. There are also home-made how-to-dos, covering pomanders to potato bread to soap-making. On top of all that, the new title contains plenty of folklore tales which have enthralled Shannon down the years, including stories about fairies, leprechauns and the dreaded banshees.

A Celtic Yearbook is released on November 10 and can be purchased on Amazon.com for under $10. For more information visit LizzyShannon.com.

Ladder Memory, by Mark Ellis, Published

2011-11-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

Ladder Memory: Stories from the Painting Trade

by Mark Ellis

(Mark was a student of mine, and it was my pleasure to read the stories collected here).

In Ladder Memory, Stories from the Painting Trade, freelance journalist and writer Mark Ellis recalls his 30 year journey from apprentice painter to successful painting contractor. A memoir that will resonate for painters, those in the paint retail marketplace, trade contractors and for anyone who has ever hired a painter or picked up a brush.

In “Mrs. Peltzer’s Husband” a floor epoxy job becomes a look into the life of a woman suffering from emotional abuse. “The Stairwell” takes readers through the hellish painting of a seven-story industrial stairwell with a certifiably motley crew. “Plants I Have Known” humorously catalogues the obstacles to a good paint job created by bushes and trees. “Sam Drucker and the Frogs” recounts the story of a celebrity client and a controversial neighborhood frog abatement project. A useful appendix offers proven painting tips.

These stories scrape the knuckles and get under the fingernails. Ellis brings authenticity and discovery to his exploration of the experiences of a housepainter, and the entrapments, frailties, and indomitable spirits of those living and working in the structures he paints.

This title is also available through Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/dp/159299668X?tag=inkwaterpre07-20.

Choosing a Main Character

2011-10-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

I asked a screenwriter I met in passing to read the writing personality types I've created, respond to them, then show me the first ten pages of a screenplay.

I made a wrong guess about who the main character was, which is not good.

When I teach a writing class and ask my students what their main character wants, many students are baffled by the question. They really don't know.

This leads to a diffuse opening.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Promise-Spirit-Storytelling-ebook/dp/B004V020N0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318551436&sr=1-1

Poets and Writers Post Agent Database

2011-10-11T01:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.pw.org/literary_agents

Find it at this link.

Writing Query Letters by Elizabeth Lyon

2011-09-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Lyon (Manuscript Makeover) on writing query letters.

Authors Road Interview Features Tom Robbins

2011-09-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Friends and Fellow Authors Road Passengers,

We are very pleased and proud to present our latest video and audio interview with one of our favorite writers, Tom Robbins. At 36 minutes it is longer than our usual 20 minute goal, but we just couldn't help ourselves.

Since early childhood Robbins has been in love with writing, and he has devoted his life to this art with his publication of some of the most well-known, well-loved books of all time. It’s no surprise that he was named as one of the 100 Best Writers of the 20th Century by Writer’s Digest Magazine. We found him to be an intensely intelligent and generous man – and the funny, charming, slightly off-kilter writer we know from his books.

We hope you enjoy watching or listening to this interview as much as we did making it.

George & Salli
The Authors Road

An Editor on Editing

2011-09-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

Charity Heller of The Mighty Pen speaks about the editorial process on this video posted on YouTube.

A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling Available

2011-09-18T18:37:00.001-07:00

A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle.

This new edition offers new, unique tools for creating vibrant story characters and recognizing some of the main flawed character types in novels: characters who are emotionally numb, stuck, or too wounded to act.

If you've ever been told your minor characters are more interesting than your main character, this workbook will give you the tools you need to transform your writing.

If you've found value on this site, please buy the book for yourself or as a gift for another writer.

The book is available on several other e-book formats--including Nook, Kobo, and Sony--through Smashwords.

2011-09-16T00:58:00.000-07:00

My friends George Mason and Salli Slaughter have started a project they call Authors Road. Details below.

Friends and Lovers of The Word,

We are so very pleased to present a video and audio interview with New York Times bestselling mystery writer, Robert Dugoni. Robert knew early on that he wanted to be a writer (it was either that or weed the iceplant!), but circumstances led him to a successful career as an attorney instead. And then one day, as the story goes, he knew it was time to change and follow his real dream ….

Robert’s story is fascinating as he sacrificed and struggled to perfect his art of story telling, and how he has made it a point to give back to others and help prospective writers also follow their dreams.

George & Salli
The Authors Road, http://www.authorsroad.com/

Meditation Retreat News

2011-09-16T00:24:00.001-07:00

I spent the previous weekend at a silent meditation retreat. I was able to get to a meditative, peaceful place for about half the meditations. The other half I couldn't shake problems I brought from work.And I couldn't sleep at night, so I had to figure out a way around the Alton Creek Retreat Center without keeping others awake. To get around, I would walk down a dark road, knowing I was at the side of the road when I started running into bushes, to get from my room or the meditation chapel back around to a library or kitchen with some fruit available.I did get in some late, late night meditations.The Alton Creek facility is a great place to host a meditation retreat. Excellent vegetarian food, hiking trails, quiet.Without deep meditation I would feel stranded in life, caught up in 'stuff'.

Todd Williams Rescue the Problem Project

2011-04-23T22:36:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Todd Williams speaks about his book, Rescue the Problem Project. Todd speaks at business conferences around the US about how companies can rescue a failing project.

I shot this video at the new Willamette Writers house in West Linn, Oregon.

Willamette Writers - Book Publishing Announcements - Mary Andonian's Bitsy’s Labyrinth Featured in Publisher's Weekly

2011-04-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

Willamette Writers - Book Publishing Announcements - Mary Andonian's Bitsy’s Labyrinth Featured in Publisher's Weekly

Spirit of Storytelling

2011-04-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded a fourth edition of my book titled A Story is a Promise and the Spirit of Storytelling on Kindle. I'm exploring techniques for writer to create story characters with fully developed internal lives separate from the authors,

Moving On

2011-03-03T00:54:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 3, 2011
Moving On
A dear friend is moving far, far away. When I left her tonight I went through some powerful feelings of love and loss and closeness.

When I was young, after a fairly depressed and isolated childhood, I got into a household with three creative souls. Going home at the end of a workday was one of the most exciting events in my life, just to find out what my housemates were doing creating being. And I got to do it every day. Coming home after a trip was like going to the circus as a little kid for the first time.

I miss that, when going home is the most exciting bliss of anticipation.

Once, my best friend and house mate had been picked up by a society matron 30 years his senior at a poetry reading. He was bringing her home for a non-intimate sex thing, and told me and another house mate to be straight, no creative hijinks when this matron landed on our shores.

Well, I'd just smoked some weed and I had a BIG problem keeping a straight face when under the influence. So I'm sitting there trying to be stone faced while mightily stoned when my friend came through with this lady. Another house mate asked her a question, but she didn't answer and he left.

Then she turned to me and answered his question as if I'd asked it. Which under the circumstances felt like the most funny thing to happen ever in the history of the world.

I managed to keep a straight, solemn face until she left to do that thing with my friend, but I bust out laughing then, and my other house mate returned and found it funny as well.

God, those were the days. I had 15 months of that, then went off to do bellows breathing 3-4 hours a day for a year.

Randall Jahnson on Screenwriting

2011-02-24T21:46:00.000-08:00

New Home

2011-02-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

I've moved into a house purchased by Willamette Writers, a non-profit writers group that I work for. I have a room next to the office I'm working in. Easy commute, harder to stay away from the office computer.

I miss where I lived for 12 years, a quiet space across the street from a cemetery, with a performing space I could use once a month for playwrights meetings (years ago) or workshops.

The first several nights here I felt like I was sleeping in a hotel and I wanted to go home.

Now I'm transitioning.

That happens.

Meditation Anecdotes

2010-11-10T00:21:00.000-08:00

(I practice yoga meditation as taught by Paramahansa Yogananda. The following are short pieces I've written about the meditation group I've attended).

A Meditation on Pine Sol

Paramahansa Yogananda relates the story of the businessman in India who had to travel to England to attend to business interests. He approached a great yogi to ask for a technique that would allow him to travel to England by a yogic method and avoid paying the cost to travel by boat. The great yogi taught the worldly businessman a technique that he could use to transport himself to England and back, but mentioned as the businessman was leaving that he should not think about monkeys while he practiced the technique.

All the man could meditate on was monkeys. Dozens of monkeys. Thousands of monkeys. Monkeys were all he could think about.

When our meditation group moved into its chapel on 32nd and NE Broadway, the group rented its space from a Foos Ball company on the first floor of the building. A devotee cleaning the chapel on the day of the first service thought that if a little Pine Sol cleaned things well, a lot of Pine Sol would do an even better job.

That first service reeked of Pine Sol. Anyone who didn't wear a Hazmat suit to the meditation service surely found themselves thinking about Pine Sol.

The devotee who learned something about Pine Sol that night could think of nothing else. Not even a monkey could have made it through his inner mental chambers, unless the monkey was carrying a mop soaked in Pine Sol.

The Most Catholic Receptionist

When our meditation group moved in to our new chapel on 32nd and Broadway, the street
front of the building was a company that sold Foos Ball equipment and a small space directly under our chapel was a doctor's office. The doctor's receptionist was an 80 year old lady.

Because the circuit breakers for the building were at the foot of the stairwell, if a circuit breaker was tripped, she needed access to the panel, so she would speak with the usher a few times a month. It came out that this lady very much enjoyed looking up the stairwell at Master's picture.

It came out that she'd been raised as a traditional catholic, which meant that if she ever did have a question about religion, a priest had the answer, and that was that. No meditation, no reflection.

She insisted she'd never had a spiritual experience in her life, but it came out that was being woken at night by a strange sound, which the usher informed her was probably an astral sound. He told her about the energy body and the astral currents in the spine. She was skeptical, but a few nights later she woke up and experienced her energy body instead of her physical body.

A few days after that, on the way to work and listening to her car radio, the music faded into the background and she heard a symphony of astral sounds.

Which she didn't like at all, and prayed that it be taken away.

The usher realized that, as Paramahansa Yogananda has said, only a master can really tell why someone is on a particular path in this life and what kind of spiritual awareness someone has. In the case of our most catholic receptionist, in this life looking up the stairwell at Master's picture with adoring eyes was enough of the spiritual life for her.

The Ear and the Lantern, Life and Death Incidentals: Sandra Stone

2010-07-22T00:32:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Sandra Stone reads her award-winning poem, Snow Whippets.

Under the Voice: That Curiosity, Sandra Stone

2010-07-20T23:00:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

From Wikipedia
Sandra Stone is a writer, visual, and conceptual artist working in various genres. She has received more than 35 commissions from architectural teams to create art for both public interiors and the landscape. She specializes in creating metaphor for space through architectural concepts, context, and literary text.She has been awarded fellowships from Bread Loaf, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Literary Arts Inc. In 2007 her writing won the Dana Award in Poetry. In 2000 her 25-word letter was chosen from among 7,500 entries as the winner of a one-time national competition sponsored by the Consulate-General of Japan in Portland and the US Postal Service. Her 1997 collection of poetry, Cocktails with Breughel at the Museum Café, was selected as the winner of a national manuscript competition. In 1998 Stone's book won the Oregon Literary Arts Book Award.Her work has appeared in The Hudson Review, The New Republic, International Poetry Review, JAMA, The Midwest Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, The Southwest Review, and elsewhere.She lives in Portland, Oregon, and sometimes in New York City.

Co-Authored Projects`

2010-03-05T15:27:00.000-08:00

Going through an issue with someone involving a co-authored project. In hindsight, I've realized a written agreement needs to be both what the authors are agreeing to and what they are not agreeing to, what is allowed and what isn't allowed for the partners. Someone took a small permission and drove a semi through it.

Another author contacted me about what she could do with a project without the permission of the director who brought her in to it, and the director wasn't giving permission. Not much.

Really, all agreements among writers should be put into writing, even if it's just an email, including what will happen if the partners can't agree. Anyone who tells you a project should be done on trust is going to rape, loot, and pillage you, and then tell you that you knew what they were going to do when you went along without getting an agreement in words.

A Night of Storytelling

2010-01-31T00:40:00.000-08:00

I went to see Mawson's Mettle, a reading by storyteller Lawrence Howard, performed as part of Portland's Fertile Ground festival. It was a wonderful event. This was the first time in many, many years I listened to an oral storyteller as opposed to attending plays. Listening to Lawrence tell Mawson's story (Mawson was an explorer of the Antarctic) held my attention for over two hours.

Lawrence belongs to a group called Portland Story Theater.

Spirit of Storytelling

2009-12-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

I taught a Spirit of Storytelling workshop as a benefit for Elizabeth Lyon. I discovered something that's helped me a great deal with my new play that has lacked a quality of depth. During the workshop I asked the people attending to meditate and visualize someone who represented the audience for their story. Then, to have that person speak about why a particular story spoke to them.

A bit more to it than that, but it really opened my eyes to a deeper layer to the play. I realized when I meditate on a story (deep meditation for me takes 2-3 hours to get to a place of quiet mind), that I was calling on my own understanding, and not seeking that understanding from a story character or an audience to my story.

Still pondering it all.

Happy to reach another level of understanding.

Bill

Two Ideas

2009-10-15T00:59:00.001-07:00

Someone asked me in an intro to screenwriting class what I would teach in an advanced class. After thinking it over, given a free choice, I'd spend eight hours teaching people how to write a good sentence. Most bad writing is an accumulation of bad or weak sentences. Which is why it's so hard to fix a flawed novel. Fixing structural problems doesn't get to the underlying, word to word problems.

On a theatrical front, I'm on the third version of a full length play. I wasn't happy with the new variations on the characters, so I've decided to write ten minute plays with 2-3 characters in each. A way to get to some deeper truths about characters, and to give scenes more dramatic definition and fulfillment.

The Spirit of Storytelling

2009-09-30T23:35:00.001-07:00

I went to a meditation tonight and asked for help. I realized that to teach the difference between personal storytelling versus telling a story to an audience, I need to get to what I call the spirit of storytelling. This would be a place where a writer creates characters without judging them or shaping them to meet the needs of the author (or making all the characters all an extension of the author's voice).

I realized during the meditation I'll only get to some understanding of this through the world of spirit, at least my getting there. Two years ago I was listening to a monk speak and I had a deep realization about the spirit of storytelling, something that would have been an organizing principle like a story is a promise. But I didn't have a pen and I lost the understanding once I came down from the high mood I was in listening to the monk.

Anyway, I'm teaching a characterization workshop this weekend in Medford/Ashland an during the meditation I had an idea for the first exercise I could ask people to do for the spirit of storytelling.

When I teach and people ask me questions, the answers come to me. If I don't teach and don't hear the questions, I don't know the answers.

Bill

Is It Smart To Make Yourself The Main Character in Your Fiction Novel?

2009-09-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

When you are beginning to write your fiction novel, character development is key. As many authors know, lines often become blurry, and main characters can easily resemble yourself. However, how far should you take it, and is it effective to have yourself as the main character in your fiction novel?

This many times can stem from unresolved issues that you would like to express within your fictional story. This can be a good and a bad thing. If you have had a very emotional experience in your life, then you can use yourself as your fictional main character to give an outside point of view to specific events that have occurred. Many people would call a story about character based on themselves a memoir, but what if you wanted to put that main character within fictional events that weren't true to your life? That is the beauty of being a writer because you have the opportunity to blur truth with reality, and you can use yourself as your main character within the story that you are creating.

Many people may feel that it is more effective to make themselves the main character in their fiction novel because it gives them a better voice and tone to their writing. Again, since it is a fiction novel, many of the events will be fabricated within the storyline, but you will still be using yourself as the main character to tell the story. This can often give you the opportunity to express something in your life that you did not get the chance to express before. Now you are in control, and you can write your story however you would like with yourself as the main character.

This does have a good and a bad side because many people may do this with suppressed motives of anger or sadness regarding true events that have happened to them. They may want to write themselves as the main character to be able to rewrite the past and work through some of their issues.

Regardless, your choice in using yourself as the main character is up to you if you are still staying true to the theme of your novel. For some people, this may be an interesting avenue to provide first-hand insight of events that will make the story one-of-a-kind.

*******************

Chuggin McCoffee is a coffee fanatic that has spent the entirety of his career cultivating and studying all of the best uses and brewing styles for optimal coffee and espresso flavor. His specialty site for all coffee needs, supplies, and Automatic Drip Coffee Makers can be found at The Coffee Bump.com.

Hats for Sale, by Nancy Hill

2009-09-06T00:16:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Hats for Sale is a video written and created by Nancy Hill, a photographer and writer who lives in Portland, Oregon. The video can be viewed at http://storyispromise.blip.tv/

Nancy is the photographer and writer of the The Dolltender, also available for viewing on Blip.tv.

To view more of Nancy's work, visit http://www.nancyhillphotography.com/default4.asp

Hats for Sale is a retelling of Slobodkina's Caps for Sale.

Me and Fixing Things

2009-09-05T00:51:00.000-07:00

Had a run of ill-luck fixing things. Tried to change my 90 year old father's battery, and didn't know it had a security system that wouldn't let the car start when I put in a new battery. Replaced terminals, checked fuses, fussed with battery chargers, was going to start replacing relays and jumping the starter, when I got the word to take it to a shop and they found the problem.

Next up figuring out a cable problem to an upstairs tv that the adult kids taking care of my father use when staying over. Just stopped working. So I'm fussing and running around, getting another tv, hooking up a dvd player/tuner, no luck. Turned out the cable tv people hadn't really hooked it up to cable tv, it was still working off an antenna.

During all this I had two older computers in the office of Willamette Writers die in one week. Stressful.

When I was young I came across several people from Egypt who had old cars with bad brakes. I would go to a u-pull it yard with a $25, all you could carry deal. I'd take off the drums and shoes of an old car and install it all for $50. Got people on the road again.

Gizmos are more complicated now. Can't do the quick and cheap cleaning a battery, replacing an alternator or a coil wire, getting someone back on the road.

24 Hours of Summer

2009-08-21T23:49:00.001-07:00

I saw (500) Days of Summer tonight. When I was young, I lived in my head, just like the young man in this movie. In the movie, he gets involved with a free spirit, which is pretty much something that happens a lot in the fantasies of young guys who live in their heads, not so much in real life.

In the movie, the guy has an interior life; the girl doesn't, which reinforces the fantasy aspect.

So I was really tripping emotionally while watching the movie.

For the record, as a young poet I was engaged for 24 hours to Jay Sheckley, who was Portland's Madonna at the time. Someone told me once the high point of her life was following Jay around San Francisco for eight hours.

After I started studying story structure (the ideas that became a story is a promise), I re-read the hundreds of short stories I'd written when young, and a few novels. Many were written with main characters who lived in their heads, generally a terrible choice for stories, since readers often want to experience a story through an active character on some kind of journey. Not with quiet guys who think a lot and don't do much.

Yes, it can be done, but it's easy to do badly, hard to do well.

Anyway, 500 Days makes its story more interesting by chopping up the narrative and manufacturing a happy ending.

For the record, I sweat bullets the whole 24 hours I was engaged to marry Jay. I really, really enjoy relating the experience more than I enjoyed living through it.

Three Degrees of Separation

2009-07-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

A friend of a friend has been caught up in a back current of the Michael Jackson drama, over some Christmas Eve photos. I thought about what he could have done, or what I would have done in this situation. But, in my life, every time I thought the Hollywood Money Train was going to stop in front of my door, I became quite unbalanced inwardly. Anxious, paranoid, grasping.

Exceedingly unpleasant.

I've found in this life that the only way a person can stack the deck in his or her favor is to help others. Whatever you do to help others, you'll get that back plus ten percent. If you're lost, you'll be found. Need money, it'll come through. Need guidance in a dark time, it'll come through.

Of course, I might also be the fox saying I didn't want those grapes anyway.

Summer In Words Update

2009-06-22T20:52:00.001-07:00

I taught at workshop at Jessica Morrell's new conference, Summer in Words, held in Manzanita, Oregon. I didn't arrive until early Friday afternoon.

I sat in on a workshop led by Jennie Shortridge and was very impressed. Jennie started by asking people to write about their favorite meal as a way to get people to write about something they had strong feelings about. She also mentioned that eating is a large part of life, but is often short-changed in stories.

To help writers create interesting characters, Jennie had authors consider what kind of jobs/occupations/passions were attractive to them when young. She then suggested authors could give a character in a novel those occupations/interests/passions, and as the author explored a character in that kind of field, the author would be exploring something that spoke to the author's passion.

Jennie did a great job of getting the assembled authors to write from a deeper place.

Self Awareness/Directed Awareness

2009-06-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about awareness today. For people, self-awareness has many facets. People in general need brain power to filter out much of the information their senses collect. I think self-awareness for particular people can end up running in channels, so that we can quickly assign meaning and values to people and relationships in our lives and not get bogged down/drown in processing details. Relationships can also be symbolic, in the sense that a symbol can stand in for a relationship, a kind of short hand code.

The problem arises when a new writer doesn't realize their particular short hand code (a dark-haired woman with thick glasses could be a symbol for an abusive parent) doesn't evoke anything for a reader. The job of our brains to filter out details or shape our reality to a particular design can lead to a kind of neutered, thin writing that fails to ring true. Except for the person writing in their particular symbolic code.

Directed awareness, however, is a choice about where to focus awareness. Cynthia Whitcomb, the President of Willamette Writers, has had a long career as a successful screenwriter. When she began focusing more on writing plays, she read a play a day for a year. That was one way she assimilated a deeper understanding of what makes for a good play.

I find students in my screenwriting classes who don't like or watch movies. They simply want to imagine an idea of theirs turned into a Hollywood film, or imagine their life being turned into a major motion picture, with the money involved. I sometimes lose 50% to 70% of my students in a particular class. I suspect when I try and teach them directed awareness about storytelling -- consciously learning the craft -- they aren't ready for the work involved, or they come to realize the work involved.

About directed awareness versus intuition, recent brain scan studies have shown that once people have assimilated understanding (gained understanding about some facet of writing like plot, for example), when a problem arises, the subconscious can take that assimilated understanding of storytelling and find a solution to a particular plot problem. Then pop the answer in to the conscious mind.

Which some people interpret as intuition.

The catch is, the subconscious can only present that answer to the conscious mind when that mind is not preoccupied with a particular problem. Being pre-occupied with a problem blocks the subconscious mind from accessing the conscious mind and providing an answer.

I go over this more in the latest version of my book, and reference some of these new scientific studies. I find it fascinating that brain scans give a more accurate representation of how the brain works and functions.

Many years ago I was in a state of deep meditation where I could see the flow of my subconscious thoughts/feelings/awareness welling up into my conscious mind; be aware of thoughts before they became conscious thoughts. Odd, enchanting process to observe.

****************************************

A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle.

An Unexpected Revelation

2009-06-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

There was a gathering of some of the original cable access video volunteers in Portland at my place today. I introduced myself to one gentleman who started telling me about putting together a memoir about his father's life and experiences in WWII. Then it came out that his father lived in a boarding house in Vienna after WWI, with Adolf Hitler living in the basement of the boarding house.

I'd like to see the memoir when it's completed.

Many years ago I met a man who said his father was a pilot in a bomber group in WWII. That when missions were aborted mid-flight, the bombers could pretty much drop bombs on a long list of targets, except the railroad tracks running in to the death camps. They were forbidden by direct order not to bomb those railroad tracks, while railroad tracks in general were an open target if missions were aborted.

Interesting stories you can hear at gatherings.

For a short time in my life, I kept finding myself being a minor irritant to various billionaires. I kind of miss those days. I haven't irritated a billionaire in many years now. I'm sure I wasn't much above the level of a bug hitting a windshield to them, but still, that's a righteous feeling, being a bug with a mission.

The Dolltender, by Nancy Hill

2009-05-17T03:20:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Nancy Hill's The Dolltender is a video of a book written and photographed by Nancy. In the story, a young girl's parents disappear into a looking glass. She ends up hiding in a trunk stored in the back room of an antique store. The little girl begins to care for the dolls until she's found out and exiled...until the dolls help her come up with a plan to come back to the home she's created for them all.

The Dolltender is a heart warming story for all ages.

Nancy is a professional photographer and writer living in Portland, Oregon. To view other photos by Nancy, visit http://www.nancyhillphotography.com/

Thinking about the Spirit of Storytelling

2009-04-05T23:40:00.001-07:00

I've worked through many of the A Story is a Promise ideas. I've started working through the ideas around the difference between personal storytelling and telling a story to an audience. Almost two years ago I was listening to a monk speak and I had a deep, clear realization about how the brain operates (conscious, subconscious or unconscious), and superconscious. But I didn't have a pen, and I lost the realization.

So now I'm trying to put the pieces together instead of starting with a foundation and building on it.

Initial ideas, conscious mind deals with relationships, subconscious stores memories/facts, superconscious (spirit) is a place we can see the truth about ourselves and story characters, and not have a need for others/story characters to be characters in an internal drama.

So, I was speaking to my friend Monty tonight. His observation is that we live in a culture where people are rewarded for being active and busy and getting paid for developing or using skills to do things. Which creates people good at recording facts, and processing relationship info from an ego-centric frame of reference, and also creating people who are emotionally numb. Being perpetually busy becomes a substitute for feeling.

When such people try to write a story, which is often on a basic level a journey of feeling, all they relate are facts devoid of feeling, except for minor characters who act out the author's anger, jealousy, rage, etc.

But how to help people get to that spirit level which exists, first, in a quiet mind which isn't tied up re-imagining daily events or ruminating about old wounds and re-projecting different outcomes. And then to a place where that place of quiet spirit someone can accept themselves and see others as they are without a need to project something onto them, and thus write in a deeply felt way that allows story characters to have their own truths.

But what that original insight was, I still don't remember.

I guess I'll just keep wrestling with the pieces.

Bill

Reconfiguring

2009-04-01T23:59:00.001-07:00

I wrote a full-length play, then realized it had become a rehash of a relationship, with many of the minor character's played by an ex-girlfriend's family. That's something I'm studying now, the pitfalls of what happens when a script becomes a personal drama in lieu of a story told to an audience.

So I rewrote the play, then realized I'd done more personal storytelling, making the story about a collection of oddball eccentrics I've known in life, without a interesting or sympathetic main character at the heart of the story.

And some off-beat humor while I was working my way through the play.

So, I'm getting ready to launch another rewrite.

Except a tooth has started aching, which is distracting, and another expense on top of replacing my car. I think sharks have it right. A tooth goes bad, it falls out, another tooth moves forward to take its place.

Kinda worked that way with the car, not the tooth.

Bill

My Toyota, RIP

2009-03-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

I bought a new radiator for my Toyota Corolla and installed it with the help of my friend Monty. A few days later the head gasket blew again; the sealant didn't hold.

On another front, my girlfriend's father passed away after a long illness and her mother had a car she didn't want, so I bought a 1999 Ford Taurus, a big, roomy car that I don't particularly like driving. So in the fall I'll trade down for an older Toyota or Ford Escort, something I can park and drive all week on a tank of gas.

Anyway, I'll sell the Toyota (which runs again with a bit of sealant) for $150, with a new radiator that cost $140. Someone with the right tools and an ability to replace the head gasket will get a nice little car.

I hate buying cars but the universe dropped the Taurus in my lap, just like the low-milage Toyota landed in my lap (parked in front of my place for sale at $1,000).

I feel like my father driving this big Taurus.

Bill

My Car Has a Heart Attack

2009-03-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm driving down the road when steam starts wafting from under the hood. A broken radiator hose, says I. So I hop in my girlfriend's wheels and get an upper radiator hose I don't have the tools to fix at her place. Since I live nearby, I figure to make a run for it, keeping a close eye on the temp gauge.

Which never rose, but the car starts billowing steam; a blown head gasket. Kind of an auto heart attack.

Oh, the humanity, says I.

In desperation, I get Barr's Head Gasket Stop Leak (or some such), which I assume is snake oil for the desperate, and since I'm desperate, and my bank account isn't weighing me down, it's for me.

Since my back is out and bending over the hood of a car sends me up to 8 on the pain scale, I ask a friend for help. He shows up with a mad-scientist type who discovers my radiator is cracked, so the sealant won't circulate. He also miss-wires my car and insists I had it miss-wired and he just wired it the way I did.

But it would never have started, says I, but he won't have none of that; none of that, says he.

He demands Demands DEMANDS I stop with the sealant since it can't possibly work with a cracked radiator, but he leaves to eat burgers with my friend and I giddi-hi-yo to the store for some radiator sealant and start the car.

More billows of white smoke, probably visible from space, but eventually the billows stop, and at the back end of my car all is clarity.

My god, it's working, I exclaim to all and sundry, mostly my girlfriend. It's working, says I.

I never expected this kind of sealant to work.

I've driven my car for several days now, and it actually runs better; I suspect the gasket was leaking long before it blew.

This is my tale, told true, of my woe, turned to un-woe.

Pain pills took care of the rest.

Joe

Klingons. Sigh.

2009-01-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

A friend posted a video on YouTube of some Klingons holding a party. The video has 11,000 hits. My literary videos, not so much.

A day in the life.

Bill

Fringe

2008-12-22T01:45:00.000-08:00

I missed the pilot for this new show and couldn't get into following episodes. When I went back and watched the pilot, I discovered how much of the show is character driven.

I used to only see Angel in occasional episodes until a good friend passed away and I rented all five seasons over about ten days and watched every episode. One of the charms of the show is how the characters/setting evolved, particularly Westley(?) and Gunn.

When I lost a family member, I went back and watched all seven seasons of Buffy, another show I only caught occasionally and never got in to. Found the same dynamic, the show was so character driven, to not start at the beginning with the characters, different episodes always felt thin without the back story.

Same with Firefly.

On another note, I turned in the collected videos I shot at Orycon (http://www.orycon.org) to local cable access. Haven't gotten a schedule yet, but I caught the last author vid on tv tonight; I believe it aired as a filler. I like to collect these short vids and put them on the air. What I'd like to do is find authors in other cities who are cable-access certified to create a group of people who would get each others' author vids on the air.

Twilight: Question, Answer, Question

2008-12-11T12:55:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Breaking down the opening preface to Twilight, the novel by Stephenie Meyer, I explore this process I call Question, Answer, Question that engages the attention of readers with the opening of a novel.

My Confession

2008-11-29T14:56:00.001-08:00

I have a terrible confession. I went to see the movie Max Payne. Funny in a bad/good way. A sniper with a rifle standing above and about 20 feet behind Max takes a shot at him. Ten feet to his left. Another shot, ten feet to his right. Max does a back flip and takes out the sniper with a shotgun. In another scene, people chasing Max from about 40 feet back shoot at him repeatedly, missing him by about 20 feet to the left and right. Must have a 20 foot rule; every 20 feet, miss by another ten feet. Good thing Max wasn't a hundred yards ahead, they would have been missing him by a couple of miles.

There was something in the movie that sparked a reverie, shadows. I once had a girlfriend that shadows would come over. I used to travel to her place and seal her room at night with light and write on her pillow and the pillows of her kids that they were loved and protected. Once I was sitting in bed with her, meditating while she slept, and a bright white light flashed and filled the room, as bright as a flash on a camera. A shadow about the size of a person went up the wall in front of the bed and out the ceiling.

One funny story about all this, after we'd broken up I was sitting at home in bed meditating when I felt pulled out to her place. She later asked me if I'd 'been there' at that particular time. When I admitted something pulled me out there, she told me she'd had a new beau spending the night in another room for the first time. A white cloud came rumbling down the hall and over the bed he was preparing to sleep in, and a voice demanded, "Who are you?"

He's lucky I didn't zap his manhood with a lightning bolt.

Anyway, every time I see shadows in a film (Constantine is another) it creeps me out. Damn things.

Writers Welcome to Orycon

2008-11-28T21:54:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Patty Wells speaks about the various programs offered to writers by Orycon, a science fiction/fantasy convention held in Portland, Oregon. For more information about Orycon, visit http://wwww.orycon.org.

I shot this in the
lobby area for the convention using an inexpensive wireless mic. It picked up more
background sound that I would have liked, but live and learn. This is why I like doing this kind of piece someplace I can control the environment.

Mike Thaler, Tales from the Back Pew

2008-11-26T22:43:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Mike Thaler, author of The Teacher from the Black Lagoon, reads from his new series, Tales from the Back Pew.

Mike Shepherd Speaks about his Kris Longknife Novels

2008-11-25T18:31:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Mike Shepherd speaks about his Kris Longknife novels at Orycon 30, a science fiction convention held in Portland, Oregon. I shot several authors, including David D Levine, Sheila Simonson, and Mary Rosenblum. So far I've just edited two. I didn't take a tri-pod, since I didn't have a 'place' to shoot these. I discovered that in a hallway, it's best to shoot the author sitting at an angle to the wall behind them to give a sense of depth. In hindsight, I could have shot some hallway chats with people to edit together.

Mike was a good subject. He has a nice strong voice and he's done his share of public speaking.

My Appaloosa Past

2008-11-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

I just saw the movie Appaloosa. In the film, a woman has sex with every dominant male she comes across. I was in a relationship many years ago that had that dyanmic. At first, not knowing what I was dealing with, it seemed fine since I was the alpha male. My girlfriend was going through a divorce from a gun collector/lock smith. He didn't like her going to school so he rigged her briefcase with a blackpowder charge. When she opened it, there was a flash and a bang. He just wanted her to know what could happen if she really crossed him, like asking for alimony in a divorce.

Didn't do much for her nervous system. That and his rigging firecrackers to drawers (and doors) so when she opened something around the house, bang!

During that time, I wondered if I'd open a car door, see a bright flash, and watch my hand go sailing over my shoulder.

It was odd at the time that because I'm tall and big and quiet around people I don't know, so my girlfriend's tormentors all assumed I was plotting to do something to them. So they all took a step back when I was around. That probably did help to keep something unpleasant from happening.

Around then I became an editor for someone who'd just sold a screenplay to Columbia. A male writer. They had a brief affair, which destroyed that working relationship. Our relationship survived, but the same problem eventually killed it.

To me a relationship is a sanctuary, a place I can be with someone and talk about my day, my life, just be myself, share myself and be open and intimate with my sweetheart. It's not a circus, with me as the guy who follows the elephants shoveling up crap.

Ah, well, it was something to be young and in lust. That woman had me on fire.

**********************************************

A fourth edition of my writing workbook, A Story is a Promise and The Spirit of Storytelling, is available on Amazon as a Kindle and a trade paperback.

Another Halloween at Collins View

2008-11-03T09:04:00.000-08:00

The International Club holds its annual Halloween bash where I live. I performed in a skit as a werewolf in the song about Wolfman Jack. The skit went well, although I missed a cue because I couldn't see much wearing a mask. I realized how much I depend on visual information to do a skit versus listening to audio cues from the lyrics.

A group of dancers did a wonderful performance about politics. One dancer wore a George Bush mask, another Bill Clinton, another Barack Obama, another John McCain; another dancer was made up/dressed like Sarah Palin. Watching Bill Clinton close in on her for some hanky-panky was hilarious.

Bruce Fraser did a song about George Bush, Rush Limbough, and Hurricane Katrina.

A good time seemed to be had by all. Since the party happened where I live, I could go to my room when I felt like it. Crowds and noise aren't my favorite things in life.

Another Trip to the Sylvia Beach Hotel

2008-11-03T08:54:00.000-08:00

I spent three nights at this hotel on the Oregon Coast. The rooms are made up for various authors. I was in the Hemingway room.

I finished a draft of a play. I went wanting to finish a second act. Because I had time to sit and think about the play without interruption, I realized the reason I couldn't finish the second act was because I didn't have one. The play became a more tightly-focused one act of 65 pages.

During breaks, I wrote four one minute plays. There are a few places that do one minute play festivals, but they are done for the year. It was an interesting excercise, two characters, a situation, some humor, a twist, done.

A Room With a View

2008-10-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

Some tone deaf children are singing the Sound of Music outside my door. I live in a church converted to a performance studio.

My motto in life, live somewhere interesting.

It's nice when the International Club does its blow out Halloween party at this place. I can leave, lay down in my room, check my email, take a nap, go on the internet (sometimes all at the same time), and return to the party refreshed, revived, with a new sense of joive de vere, or whatever that is. Whatever it is, at those moments, I have it in spades.

They used to do dance benefits here, and the basement/kitchen area was a changing room. I was down there eating toast once when a semi-dressed young woman ordered me out. I considered stating my right to eat toast in the dressing room of my choice, but I skeedaddled when she looked at me cross-eyed.

I'm now off to a Willamette Writers meeting. A month ago a young man arrived at the Old Church where the meeting is held (that's the name of the place, and it also happens TO BE an old church) and asked a book seller in the basement if he could help the young man find a literary agent. When the old guy said selling used books had nothing to do with literary agents, the kid whaled on him, bloodying his face and head. The police caught the kid and I'm told his trial is today, so my hope is to get through the meeting without a need to call in some muscle.

When I was young in a bad neighborhood, I was never been beaten up by a single person. I was always beaten up by gangs when I went in to rescue friends who by the time I arrived to help them had usually grown wings and flown away. Small wings, not big enough to take me with them.

Ah, well, being hit on the back of the head isn't too bad, compared to being hit in the nose. That hurts.

I'm all over here, so I should leave and be all over somewhere else.

Bill

Copyrighting Characters

2008-10-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

I sat in on a workshop at Write on the Sound offered by literary attorney Gary Marshall (http://www.marshallcomputer.com/publications.htm). I didn't know that a character in a novel can also be copyrighted. If I understood this story correctly, when Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October became a huge success and he went with a bigger publisher, the original publisher 'owned' the copyright to the characters from Hunt. The larger publisher had to buy those rights.

Something for people who want to do a series to consider when going with a publisher.

My Narrative Tension workshop was well-attended and well-received. The book seller sold 22 of my books and ran out. I violated my own rules of always have plenty of extra books, always have more handouts than I expect to need, and always have fliers. I came up with Elizabeth Lyon in her car, so I didn't pack as much stuff.

But still...

Bill

Blip.tv, my Hero

2008-10-02T23:45:00.001-07:00

As you can see, I've discovered Blip.tv and its ability to upload and distribute a video to different web sites. Very, very nifty deal. The compression is also handled better than on YouTube; the videos play with much more quality.

Bill

Deep Characterization

2008-10-02T09:54:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Bill Johnson, author of A Story is a Promise, speaks about a process he calls Deep Characterization, where someone writing a novel makes the main character an extension of themself without understanding the pitfalls.

Oregon Writers Speak

2008-10-02T09:40:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Bill Johnson introduces his series of videos featuring Oregon authors speaking about their novels, plays, and writing.

Mike Thaler (Teacher from the Black Lagoon) Studio Tour

2008-10-02T09:16:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Mike Thaler, author of The Teacher from the Black Lagoon and The Bully Brothers, offers a video tour of his work studio.

Learning learning, always learning

2008-09-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm learning about RSS feeds and video streaming for a presentation I'm doing with Elizabeth Lyon. I expected just to speak about ConstantContact (email program), YouTube, and Facebook as ways for authors to connect to the world. But that meant I needed to learn about RSS feeds and video streaming.

The easy solution for RSS and streaming, these Google blogs provide an RSS feed and allow embedded videos. Once I have a video posted on YouTube, I can copy the embed code from YouTube and have the video play on this blog, or my web site.

I feel so 21st century now.

A Trip to Frys

2008-09-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

I helped my girlfriend pick out a mini-camcorder tonight at Frys. She's a painter and visual artist; she uses a Mac. She's really picked up quickly on using iMovie and using photographs to create some nice, short videos that she uploads to Youtube. The most recent one took her 15 minutes to create and upload.

The new camera is a Canon that records on to a memory stick. I told her she needed a camera with an external mic to interview folks. I look forward to what she'll be creating.

Her site on YouTube is at http://www.youtube.com/lisakparsons

I'm going to order her a wireless mic off eBay.

Hard to get out of Frys without buying something, but I settled on a new mint flavored Rocky Road candy bar. Can't get through Frys without buying something.

Audio Blues

2008-04-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

Audio is always the killer. First shoot, good visuals, good audio. Now, a bit of a hiss. A friend who's still in the biz will check my cheap Chinese wireless mic to make sure the gain isn't too high. I'm used to the old tape days where you could see a level.

I also lost the tiny little clip that keeps the mic away from clothes on the body. Amazing what a difference that tiny little clip makes. Mics love picking up things the human ear can't hear or filter out.

I decided to create a CD that will go out with the third edition of my book, A Story is a Promise and Deep Characterization. I'll speak five minutes about the concepts in each section.

I'm expecting the book tomorrow or Tuesday.

Bill

Oregon Writers Speak

2008-04-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

I've started a new site on YouTube called Oregon Writers Speak. So far I've created three videos of authors talking about their work. I did industrial and some corporate video many years ago (writing and directing). This on-line editing is an all new world for me. So far the videos are mostly meat and potatoes, authors in a chair talking, with a few inserts. As I get the basics of editing, I'll do some more interesting work.

http://www.youtube.com/user/OregonWritersSpeak

Thoughts on Into the Wild

2008-03-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

When I was young, I suffered from a black depression. It would last 2 days to a week a couple of times a month. When I got older, I stumbled across a yoga technique called bellows breathing. I ended up doing the technique three hours a day for a year as a way to end my black depression. Everyone around me thought I was nuts. For me it was an inner journey, where the young man in the movie goes on an external one.

What I discovered on this inner journey is that the energy in my body is a medium between my thoughts and my physical body. That the paths the energy flows through my body is a reflection of my thoughts, but also, as the energy goes out and fuses into the flesh, memories and states of feeling are held in place, in a sense, in the muscles of the body.

The cause of my black depression was that the energy flow in my body was seriously constricted, but I wasn't aware of the constrictions. If anyone has had the flu and had bodily aches, those aches are constrictions in the body's energy flow. Open up the constrictions, you don't feel bad; you just have a slightly running nose.

But, in black depression, the constrictions don't manifest as pain.

When I did the bellows breathing, in different parts of my body the flow of energy would increase. When that increased flow encountered a restriction, it would, over time, open up the restricted energy flow. Over that year I opened up restricted flows in my legs, arms, stomach, chest, lower and upper back, then my head and face.

After that year, I rarely experienced a black depression; I get a whiff of it once a year for a fews hours and it's a reminder that I need to meditate more deeply, eat better, get some mental rest.

When I went through this process, for the first time in my life I felt I really knew something; I understood how my body and mind and energy body functioned together. I knew something that no one could take away from me.

I've never run into anyone else who went through the same process, but Kriya Yoga does teach how to open up the major channels in the spine and brain.

Black depression is a terrible ordeal. I used to describe it as fading to black.

Impulse Control

2008-02-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

I went to see a movie titled Trailer Park Boys tonight, about some low-rent thieves living in a trailer park. Funny movie; might be too vulgar for some. Apparently based on a Canadian TV show. One of the characters had a car with no passenger door. It triggered a memory for me. When I was a kid, about six, I was riding in a car with my father. We were getting close to home so I opened the door and stepped out.

Only close to home was about a block so I stepped out of a moving car.

Really, we were almost home.

I survived with just a few scrapes and bruises, but boy did my parents keep an eye on me after that, and I often had to sit in the backseat between siblings.

Flash forward many years... I'm in a relationship, visiting a friend of my girlfriend at the Oregon Coast. He'd come out to say goodbye and was hanging onto her window (a Plymouth Voyager). It was time to go, so I started driving down the street. You'd think he would have taken the hint and let go of the window, but no, he had to go along with us for several feet before dropping off.

My girlfriend was steamed. He should have taken the hint and let go. It wasn't like I smacked him to make him let go of the door.

Anyway, when it's time to leave, I'm on the move.

Orycon29

2007-11-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

I attended Orycon29 this past weekend, a local science fiction convention that brings together around 1,500 people for a weekend. For the first time I was on some panels.

Science fiction was my first love as a reader; up until I read a book of science fiction short stories, I read books because they were school assignments. When I read that book of short stories, my eyes got opened that stories could say something about the world I lived in, or other worlds.

Science fiction conventions are a many splendered thing. There are panels of authors, some for science, others on how to create goth outfits, sing filk, etc. There are writing workshops, an art show, dances, a dealer's room, many people in costumes of all types.

If I ever had a kid, a science fiction convention is a place I'd feel comfortable about turning them loose. Very family-oriented people.

I was on a panel about reading fees (which are just about always bad), and two panels on movies. I expected to be on a film panel with Will Vinton, but he didn't show, so me and someone who was very knowledgeable about films chatted and let people in the audience talk about their favorite films. My time at the Clinton St Theater in Portland made me well-versed in the films of Takashi Miike, a Japanese director of odd films, and some very scary, like Audition.

I attended some very interesting panels about the physics of space travel (nothing in physics really suggest a 'doable' path yet.

My girlfriend had some work in the artshow so I helped set up metal and panels on Thursday. We stayed at the hotel, even though I live in Portland where the con happened. It's nice to have somewhere to crash during the day without leaving the hotel.

The local paper did a review of the conference that was nice and balanced, at

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/

My writing weekend is still coming up, and I'm looking forward to getting some work done on my new play.

A Writers Weekend

2007-11-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

I've set up a writers weekend for the end of this month. Several playwrights will attend, gathering at a house near the Oregon Coast on Friday afternoon. After dinner there's a writing session, where everyone goes off to write. On Saturday, there are three more sessions of just writing. During breakfast and lunch and after dinner a scene or two might be read out loud. After breakfast on Sunday, another writing session. After that, people generally are taking off.

These writing weekends are great for focusing just on writing and getting a lot of work done. The conversations are also wonderful.

I generally take a lap top and laser jet printer and end up printing for people. I can write on a computer, but I really need to see something on the page to rewite.

My first drafts are generally quite rough. I generally know the direction I'm going, but I find out what happens when I get there. And what happens can be different than what I expected. In a writing class I would call this heading North, because I know that by going North a character will find something like redemption, etc. But what that redemption looks like, how it plays out, I have to go North to find out.

I've also written ten minute plays based just on an idea and a set up (two characters in the afterlife in conflict about X), but I've found if I don't have an underlying story to go with the idea and set up, no amount of tinkering will fix that lack of direction and purpose. I've tinkered with some ten minute plays up to a year before I finally got a deeper fix.

Deep meditation is another way I get to that deeper place of what a story is about. I try to lead at least one three hour meditation a month to get to a place of quiet, peaceful mind.

Bill

A Check in the Mail

2007-10-30T22:09:00.001-07:00

I received a check today for Betting the Karmic House being published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays for Three or More Actors (2005) by Smith and Kraus, edited by D. L. Lepidus. I'm always happy to get a check for anything theater related.

Sylvia Beach Hotel Sojourn

2007-10-01T01:16:00.000-07:00

I managed to stay four days at the Sylvia Beach hotel in Newport, Oregon. The hotel is well-known for having rooms decorated for individual authors. I was in the Oscar Wilde room. There's a Mark Twain room, Sr. Seuss, Edgar Allen Poe, etc. I wrote 50 pages of a new play while there. The hotel has a beautifully arranged, comfortable reading area on the third floor. Many, many readers are up there every day. I found a table where others did puzzles that I could set up my laptop (I bring a full-sized keyboard; I hate tiny laptop keys).

Many people staying at the hotel raved about the unpretentious accommodations, and that two cats roamed about, finding people to sleep with at night. Breakfast was a communal affair, easy to meet others. A formal dinner was optional, but it included much time to visit others and play a game called Two Truths and a Lie. I ended up not playing, a disappointment to others. I have an issue with lying, that it's wrong to do and weakens me. I didn't explain that, but on a few nights I found it easier to go out to Burger King, which also gave me more time to write (dinners take about two hours, with a leisurely presentation of food and much conversation).

I did get a lot of work done on a new, full length play. I had an idea for a story (about people who feel they have a special destiny in life), some characters, and a destination to aim for, and an opening scene in mind before I arrived. So when got there, mostly I just wrote. After three days of full time writing, I had 50 pages (I was aiming for 60) but then I burned out, so I spent my last day rewriting my opening scene/first ten pages. I'm a terrible first draft writer, but writing helps me get to a deeper place of understanding about my characters and helps me flesh out my plot.

I once wrote with someone who is a first draft writer. With her, you did a first draft, polished it, you were done. My writing as a way to see where I was going didn't work at all for her. She was great about talking through story/character/plot ideas before writing, but not so much during or after.

I do enjoy working with others and sounding out ideas and developing characters, but the give and take of a partnership can be difficult.

Since I've learned about the mechanics of storytelling, I find when I get a first draft done, there's something there I can build on.

Intro to A Story is a Promise Blog

2007-08-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

This is the very first post in my new blog. I welcome a discussion about storytelling. I'm the author of a Story is a Promise. When I came up with these ideas about how a story functions as a promise and wrote the book, I thought if new and struggling writers could be taught the mechanics of storytelling, their writing would automatically improve. These principles have helped many writers, but I'm now exploring why so many people fail to learn storytelling (not just from me; I've worked with people who've taken writing workshops for 20 years from several dozen teachers and knew just about zero about storytelling). I'm actively seeking writers who would like to participate in a process I call Deep Characterization. Contact me for details.