Once, I was all but convinced that there would come a morning when I would wake, not in the same bed in which I had gone to sleep the night before, but in my own past.  With a second chance.  I even knew the most likely time and place because so few points in my life hold strong sense memory, one stands out.  It would have been a little too late for changing the person I am at root, but from that morning waking in a strange bed, with brilliant May sunlight on an amber wood floor and the smell of toast and coffee, the sound of women’s voices in the next room, and a television with distressed excitement telling of death I could make a better beginning.

“Hey. You seen Baby?”
“Whose baby are you looking for, Christmas? My girls are both at home with their mama, and if Shan has gotten around to finishing off her production, nobody has told me about it.”
“Lee, I know you are not stupid. That means you’re just being an ass. I’m looking for that little foreign girl comes in here all the time. You know who I’m talking about. I just can’t get her name. Baby.”
“Bousseh.”
“Bossy. Baby. Whatever. I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
“Dammed if I know, Christmas, I haven’t seen her.”

Ever notice when you’re having trouble sleeping just how strangely your mind can begin working? This morning–puns. Guess it was because of the upcoming surgeries that I had EYES in mind. Wound up with the idea for a series of bad pun mystery novel titles. Fr instance: Eyes and Snow, Eyes Cubed, Eyes Teased, Eyes Stand Corrected, My Myself and Eyes, Eyes Cubed, Eyes Slash, Eyes Surrender. And on and on. Then there came the Teas: Iced Tease, Tease and Sympathy, Tiny Little Tease, Black Tease, Green Tease. And Snow: (a spin off from the Eyes and Snow story) Snow Business: Show Business, Snow’s Shoes, Snow on the Ground, Snow in the Forecast, Snow Matter. The worst of the lot were the icing puns EyeSing and the Body Electric, EyeSing on the Cake, Of Thee EyeSing. yesss, I did get up in the middle of the damn early morning and write down all of those–and more.

I am having trouble.  It is the fucking voice.   It is like writing underwater.  Or with a cold.  When I re-read what I have done, my ears stop up.  The story is so drearily flat.  My character is as goddam passive as I am.

It is difficult to envision activity.  Purposeful movement toward a goal.  Hell, it’s hard enough to imagine goals.  I ran across something the other day when I was looking at writing quotes (instead of writing).  It  was so perfectly apt I had to go back and find it.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.  ~G.K. Chesterton

The novel is all MST3K-variety “rock climbing”.  Variations of the same scene, running in a continuous loop, and no progress.  Hell, I’m not even killing words with it.

This is almost as bad as the second year’s book.  In that case, I had more of a character in mind and not much of a glimmer as to a plot.  Now, there is something of a plot, not so much story, and the character refuses to deliniate herself.

I know what she ought to be like.  It’s in the notes. Stubborn bitch seems to want to stay there.

Back in the right rear of my brain there is a voice that keeps saying–rather exasperatedly–I don’t know why you don’t let me tell the story. (She would punch the me more forcefully than that if there were any way.) Thing is, she has no identifying marks. There is no character to go with. Just that–pardon me, rather bitchy–voice. She is cynical, dry, ironic, observant. She knows everything that’s going on, but is only going to tell what suits her. Smartass, hateful creature.

I thought at first it might be the cat, but the cat is male, and this is definitely female. Also, there is the omniscience. The cat has some special information, being a more-or-less mystical creature with some past lives to tap into, but he is mortal now, and bound by space and time. So he is out, but this voice is someone definitely just as catty.

I do wonder if anyone reading would be able to tolerate more than a few paragraphs now and then from such an irritating being. I mean, irritating to me. You might find her charming. Depends on what she is telling you. She is holding back on me, which pisses me off to no end. Characters ought not behave like that. [Granted, she is not, technically, a character. There is no role for her in the story that I know of .]

I ought to just sit back and let her talk and see what she comes out with, but I’m afraid that if she gets started, I might not be able to shut her up.

Silver sandals, ruby red pendant dangling from a fine black chain shaped of clasped hands; in a dress of midnight blue, swishing ankle long, she was ready for battle.

miserable punctuation

More Holly Lisle. Hey. She has some good things to say, and her novels aren’t all that bad. I got a kick out of this because I have been playing around with the muse thing, trying to figure out which one would be most likely to tolerate me and vice/versa. A-Muse-ments.

Holly Lisle on plotting with the Muse:

The Good Question…

Approaches the thing you really want to know sideways, never directly. It avoids accusation and the making of assumptions.

Never put your Muse on the defensive. You want your Muse to think it’s your buddy, not the enemy. (Don’t make the mistake of actually believing it’s your buddy, though, or it will stab you in the back and take off for Bermuda with your hero or heroine and the rest of your book.)

For current purposes, you might as well consider your Muse a hostile witness or a possible criminal being accused. You want to know the whole story here, and the Muse has it, or at least big parts of it, and it knows where it can get the rest. So you don’t ask, “What can you tell me about what Bob was doing in the Smith Building last Friday at 3:27 AM?” The answer to that one is “Nothing.” Trust me. The answer to that sort of question is always “Nothing.”

What you want to ask is something like, “Bob seems a little odd to me. Has he ever seemed a little odd to you?”

Everybody seems a little odd if you think about it, and by asking the question that way, you’re building a bit of rapport with your Muse, getting it to let its defenses down, encouraging it to say things that it knows won’t really hurt anything. Like, “Well, he does collect rubber bands. Makes great big balls with them. And he likes to put on makeup, but only in his bedroom. He isn’t one of those guys who goes public with it. And I know he likes to trap things. You know, rabbits and foxes and stuff.”

And now you know that Bob would have a reason to be interested in the contents of a woman’s purse other than for the money, that he has intentionally killed things—this may or may not be harmless, depending on what he does with them—and that he has an odd interest in rubber bands, which may or may not become a creepy plot point somewhere along the road. Ask yourself, what does he do with big rubber band balls?
After you figure out your question and ask it, don’t say anything else.

Staying silent creates tension, and both people and Muses will blurt out some amazing things if you just ask your question and then wait, sitting still and not filling that silence with anything.

From HollyLisle.com, wherein there is a heck of a lot of accumulated wisdom, tips and other useful goodies about writing, comes this exercise in character creation. Truth is, if you begin with this, in absence of story, it is an exercise in story creation.

The Character Workshop

Choose a gender

Female

Choose a place of birth

A shack behind the priestess’ house

Choose a hobby

Making little animal shapes from sticks or stones or bits of clay

Choose a past job

Drudge for the priestess

Choose a present job

Priestess

Choose a love interest

Claren the bard who taught her her letters–and more

Choose an enemy

The Priestess–Dama Kara. She was the one who lived in the house behind which our heroine was born, and for whom she slaved while she was a child. Dama Kara hated the child because she hated the mother for succeeding where she had failed, in winning the heart–and obviously, more, of the man she desired.

Choose a pet

She is not allowed pets, but she has been secretly feeding scraps to a feral cat who has a litter of kittens hidden somewhere on the property.

Why is your character not working at an old job?

She scratched out enough of an education to make herself an attractive prospect when the opportunity was there. The Abbess found her quick, clean and reverent. In fact, a contrast to Dama Kara, her ostensible sponsor.

Why is your character not with an old love interest?

Her first love was another girl. She married and has children now. They are still friends, which amazes my character, but fills her with gratitude.

Why does your character not make the hobby a profession?

The things are small and crude and there would not be that much money in them, anyway. However, even if there were, she would probably not move in that direction unless that were her only choice, because it would take the pleasure out of making and giving the little animals, if she were required to do it for a living.

How did your character make the enemy?

Dama Kara was disposed to hate her because of her birth, but that might have changed. If my girl had come to admire DK and despise her (good, sweet, kind, etc) mother. If the girl had been a less intelligent and/or a homely soul, giving DK a valid excuse to look down on her. It would have been nice if the mother had died in childbirth or soon after and she could have raised our girl in her image–she may have even imagined that. None of that, however, was to be. Instead, she entirely overshadowed the woman in every way, including piety.

How did the pet once save the character’s life?

Perhaps not so dramatic as all that. She was out walking, and not paying as much attention as she should to where she was going, so that she wandered off the trail. She was crossing a deserted farmstead, all overgrown in brambles and sedges, and picking her way along the way of least resistance, aimlessly. When the cat appeared from nowhere she changed her direction and began to follow it because it seemed to be heading at least somewhere. Looking back, she saw that if she had continued she would have stepped onto an almost hidden well-cover. Probably rotten. That was the beginning of her sneaking food to the cat.

What is the one thing your character would do anything in the world to have? Why? What has he already done to obtain it? What does he hope to try in the future?

What would she do anything in the world for? She is a very moral person. Her mother has taught her well, despite the very bad model of Dona Kara. Still, she believes, not all things are absolute. There is a relic of known healing powers in the possession of someone who considers it simply an adornment. While she would like to consider herself someone who would retrieve this item simply in order to do good for the general public, she is aware that that’s not entirely the case–her love, the bard, is ailing in his joints, and prone to fevers. She has tried appealing to the woman’s better nature in the past, explaining the truth of the thing [pendant--thin gold casket with a large red stone] She has every intention of stealing it. If she is successful, she may have to give up her religious profession.

What is your character’s name? What is your character’s age and physical description?

Before she became a priestess, her name was simply Emma. She was renamed by the Abbess upon her rebirth as a priestess, and she is now Dama Lea. Still young to have been accepted, she is less than 25. Her birth was during the spring of the year. She is taller than most other women around her, and many of the men. Her shoulders are broad and she carries herself errectly, she is graceful. Her hair is a rather nondescript brown. Because of the order, it is cut short in the back, and in bangs to her eyebrows. Her eyes are brown. She has good skin and a blush on her cheeks. She still works hard physically, and is strong.

Write everything you know about your character you know right now.

Dama Lea praises the Goddess with everything she does. She believes that everyone else ought to do the same, but in their own ways. She sees no reason the drunkard should not praise the Goddess in drink, just so long as he not cause harm to any other in so doing.

She makes friends easily. Children, especially, like her. The toys she makes have been the gate to many a new set of exchanges. They also know that she does not tell secrets. She may go out of her way to find help for a problem without allowing the truth to be known.

So, what’s wrong with her?

I’m sure more will come to mind later, but for now:

Dama Kara is not far off the mark in accusing her of pride. She struggles with herself, but not very much, for her pride in her intellect, and her beauty.

While her speaking voice is not unpleasant–in the mid range, and reasonably modulated–she cannot sing, and cannot be stopped. Also she whistles when she thinks no one is around. Songs that are not only un-canonical, they are un-ladylike.

And, of course, despite the strictures, she has not been chaste.

The dog was out in the back yard yelping.  There were no apparent causes.  The trees were blowing in the starting wind,  the leaves beginning to fall.  Everything seemed to be only beginning to happen.  There was an air of waiting.  The dog. The dog ran back and forth along the chain fence, covered with honeysuckle and intertwined with the odd young tree.

Dog.  I said to him, as I walked past down the alley.  I try to be polite to strange animals.  One never knows.  they have been known to fine doorways in their yards.  A little politeness never hurts.

Girl.  The dog said–you better get home there is a terrible thing about to happen.  You need to be in your home. I am trying to tell the everyone about it, but it is not easy to do.

This, as you may imagine, startled me.  I cannot remember having ever understood an animal before.  There have been times when they have seemed to convey information.  Mostly along the order of –I am hungry, you idiot, feed me; or,  why the hell did you make me move.—-

Dog.  –yes, yes, yes,  what is it?–he panted.  He was a white and brown sort of hunter.  A very nice-looking fellow.

–How is it I can understand you?–

–It is because the world may be coming to an end.  The people must be made to understand.  You see that tall old oak tree over there?  Well, it has moved two inches in the last hour.  I understand these things.  I have been given the gift of prophecy.  The world may be coming to an end.

–What can people do?

–I don’t know what you can do for yourself.  Run home and hide under the bed.  That is what I want to do.  but My people will not come outside and let me come in.  That is why I keep calling I must go inside and hide under the bed.  Help!  Help! —the dog said–Help!

Straw help I have been grasping at.  One suggestion Write 5 titles and meditate on them.  Then decide why you dislike the one you like least.  Thinking back, this probably presupposes that there is already a work to go with the titles.  That would explain my facility in discovering strings of words.  Come to think of it, in that case, I should have done much, much better.  Still, what came out wasn’t all that bad, and something could be written from almost any one of them.  hmmm.  seem to have d/c d the doc.

see if I can remember any of them

The worst was

Thought-Spoke to Me the Cat Did–    That’s my Andre Norton-esp one

Crystal Bells and Cockle Shells—        Definitely feminine, romantic, maybe magic

And Amy Came Marching Home—    I actually like that, open, modern

oh, yes, this one really stinks:

Camera Obscura Stole My Soul —-      Sounds more like a mag title

and this one actually has possibilities:

No Shame For The Wicked