Free Fall and Writers Seminars

essaysbysean.blogspot.com


I thought today I'd do two things: a free fall piece, and Part Two of Attending Writer's Seminars.
It's timely, as this month has the weekend of When Words Collide.

Free fall prompt-Voices

Sometimes, when the November wind blows me down the concrete streets under the lamps and neon signs of downtown, and sensible people are staying out of the wind, I am grateful for the voices in my head. Edward says lowly, “That building there is Rocco revival, influenced by the Chicago school.”

I grunt, whisper, “School of architecture?” But of course Edward is silent. My voices never dialogue with me.

My hands are cold, under a full-slate sky. A stupid Macdonald’s bag skitters by. “Catch it!” Ricky says, excited. “Get it!” And I stomp on it, retrieve it, and carry in on to a garbage can. “Good man!” Ricky says, and I feel pleased.

The voices are smarter than I am. What do I know of Rocco building? And more moral than I am—it would be so easy to become detached and careless of the city.

Part Two of Attending Writers Seminars

I Check Myself Before I Speak

At a writer’s seminar the group may all be trying to solve a problem together, such as Why don’t people like poetry? Or, How could we use old Greek myths in our modern writing? When I am about to speak up to contribute to the group I can check myself by asking, “How will this contribution help the group?” If I don’t know, then I have choices: I could take a second to rationally think it through, or I could do a gut check, determining if I feel a hunch this contribution is meaningful. Or do both. If I feel blank, if I still don’t know, then probably I should stay silent.

I am a writer because I have an ego, and I bring this ego to a seminar. The good news is that helping the group also helps my ego. The bad news is that if I am not aware then I might merely indulge my ego without helping the group at all. Before I speak, therefore, I check myself by asking, “Will this contribution mostly help the group, or only help my ego?” Sometimes I decide to stay silent… there will be lots of other chances to speak.

Don’t Hijack the Seminar

If a writer’s gathering is in a hotel, running all day, with several seminars to choose from, without any breaks scheduled, then it is common to take a break for yourself by missing a seminar and heading to the bar. I remember being in a bar at a table with two young ladies, one of whom was engaged to be married. We were into a fascinating topic and I wanted to learn more. Just then the fiancé showed up, came over to our table, and started speaking immediately, on a topic of his choosing, before he even sat down. In other words, he hijacked the conversation. That day we never got back to the fascinating topic, and the fiancé was never aware of the topic he was missing out on. I lost some respect for him.

Here is the lesson: In a hotel writer’s gathering, with seminars running back to back, it is common to arrive at a seminar late. Don’t speak immediately; don’t hijack the seminar. It is best not to contribute to the group until after you have an awareness of what the current discussion topic is.

Count Heads

A good trick for a writer’s seminar, especially a smaller one, is to count heads.

I was once a member of a Toastmasters Club that met in a room next to a bar. One poor young lady, call her Shawna, confided in me: She felt distress because, in a social setting, her talking was “fluffy” and she felt she was talking too much. I couldn’t offer Shawna any immediate advice on being “fluffy,” but as for talking too much I had an easy solution.

I said, “When I go the bar (after our meeting) and we sit at a table I count heads. If I count seven of us then I talk only one seventh of the time.”

The next time I met Shawna she had a really huge smile, saying, “I took your advice and I counted heads and it really worked!” I was touched.

On Being Concise

As writers we learn to cut stuff out. Horror writer Stephen King, in his book on writing, advised people to cut out ten per cent of what they write. He said it as an equation: “Second draft equals first draft minus ten per cent.”

Interestingly, the word “concise” comes from the Latin concisus meaning to “cut up, cut down.” The word is formed from con, meaning “completely,” and caedere, meaning “to cut.”

When making contributions at a writer’s seminar, when you “think before you speak,” think of how you could speak concisely.

Sean Crawford

August

Calgary

2015

Footnotes: 
~As regards Free fall, seminars and essays, there's no word yet on what people prefer, so for next week I think I will post a few old Free falls, to allow more time for my manuscript. (Due before the first frost) 

~Recently I've linked to sf writer John Scalzi (the 'confederates are losers' guy) so I thought I would link again. Today I advised on verbal comments, meanwhile Scalzi, a well-known blogger,  has advised on how to do written comments. Here is the link to his lengthy nuanced piece.

Three From Freefall

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

My last two posts were long and dense, so:

Here are three pieces from my Friday Freefall group. We are a cheerful bunch, where we choose a “prompt” and then everybody “freefalls” by writing swiftly without second thoughts or revising. Then we go around the table reading our stuff out loud. Each week, everybody wonders how I will turn a prompt into a science fiction piece.

Everything today is first-person. Two celebrate prairie life, winter and stampede, old trapper and young physics nerd. The middle piece, about exploring a mysterious building, takes place in the future. Yes, I made it science fiction.

Prompt-(celebrate the) solitude

The foothills had a new blanket of snow. The wind fluttered, never quite dying down. The sky was half overcast, which I decided meant no snow on this new day. Good, because I couldn’t take anymore. My nephew was running my trap line, my niece had my old cabin, and what was I to do? I would enjoy God’s good land. I was retired, and I deserved it. Tromp, tromp, tromp across the fresh snow—a little icy, if truth be told. But there was no one to tell it to. Down a little hill and along some brush. No friendly rabbits. No sound of birds. Up to another rise and along a long expanse of ground. I’d surprised some grouse along here, a few times, a few years ago—heck, a decade ago. Time had fled somewhere, and people I know had all fled too.

Tromp, tromp, tromp. In the Iliad their shades were grabbed and they went groaning down to Hades. I guess all the Greeks hated winter. It wasn’t bad for me but, under the winter sun, there was no one to turn to and say, “I wonder what Ajax and Achilles would say?” or “If I have to tromp around I’d rather talk to Hector and Paris than to the Greeks.” No, no scholars in this white cold solitude.

I hate it when my hands are cold and there’s nobody around. But the land abides. I could arc around and by mid-day I’d be at the old cabin. I bet it would be warm with my niece baking apple pie. Oh boy!

prompt—I got it

It’s a spooky awesome building, with stone fascia and flush dark windows, more squat than tall, raising up to five or six levels. The colors are more than light gray and dark grey windows; there are also rich vermillion, scarlet, and ultra-violet peeping at the edge of perception. What mad eye framed this fearful edifice? I approached with the same feelings as its fractured face. We were both beyond cubism—I felt awe, fear, rejection, mystery, gloom and a glimpse of a world that maybe I didn’t want to know about.

Surrounded by a large expanse of half dead grass, in a never-developed industrial park (or so I assumed) the building squatted devoid of any human touches. No one sauntered out to any picnic tables, no cheerful deliverymen. Only silence. The front doors were armour-glass, dusty. I felt a chill shoving the door open but I really wanted to know. Why? Who? What was this place doing here?

Somewhere a generator hummed, the lights shone, but none of the people this sort of place attracts were around. The lobby desk had a dead rubber plant. Maybe this place preferred plastic plants. I don’t get it. I moved about, walking silently, taking in the pictures on the wall. I saw a Martian landscape picture I recognized, by one that I didn’t, by a Martian crawler, by one with people in orange jumpsuits posing in front of a crawler. Another landscape, and then a big portrait of a man I had seen in childhood. It was Dick Branson.

Was this his place? He was certainly the sort of visionary to build it. You never heard of him since those quick plague years, but yes, if he was part of the crew that brought the plague back then that would explain a lot. I got it. What a sad, sad answer to this mystery building. 

Prompt-fake it till you feel it

Don’t you just hate this stupid stampede? A German blundered into the comic store and said, in his immortal words, “This store is the only good thing about this silly stampede.” So of course we had to write down his words and put them on a sign: Stampede Sale!

I like when Joss Whedon made his movie about the far off frontier planets. People had horses, but… If you’re going to make an action movie, you have to have a hover-car chase! And so they did, while firing their six-shooters.

Do you know why English literature is not popular? No ray guns! No car chases or explosions. Now, what’s up with that? At least in the comics old Aunt Agatha will swing a mean samurai sword.

So every year we nerds have to endure stampede. At least there’s lots of beer. Ya, but you can swig beer at a Star Trek convention—at least there’ll be one on the following weekend. At lot of guests come to the CON after using Stampede as an appetizer.

My friend—the lady who always goes as Princess Lea (complete with slave costume) tells me to just fake it until you feel it.

So here I am, with a physics degree, master of the dark forces, responsible for twelve gigajoule servers, and you want me to feel like, “yee-haw”? I’d rather be on a see-saw. Let’s wear our gothic clothes over to the park—oh you make such a fine Lolita— and go sit on the teeter-totter.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

July

2015

Footnote: Do you want more such fiction, or do you only want my serious essays?