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Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

Change Is…

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 02 Jun 2014| 6 Comments »

The 53 StepsChange is not “good.” We just say that to put on a brave face. The fact is that change is neither inherently good or bad. Change, like the universe, is neutral.

Change just is.

There have been a lot of changes around my house in the last 24 months. In that time, my wife and I have lost three of our four parents. Big change. Also during this period my wife discovered Facebook and, as a result, our social circles have widened and multiplied. Change, also pretty big from my POV. And, for the past several months we’ve had a houseguest, a young person whose life blew up while visiting us, and whom we’re helping get reestablished. Epic change.

In other words, my home life, my level of social interaction, and my private world have all undergone dramatic and fundamental transformations. And it’s made me a bit stroppy.

Yes. Stroppy. Look it up. (more…)

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Reveal

Posted in Writing, tagged , , on 29 May 2014| Leave a Comment »

hands reveal
ash-streaked eyes
smudged and sullen
like an old cloth
worn thin
wiping up
sooty tears

bluE eye by StopPanicIsJustMe

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Black Earth, Grey Sky

Posted in Gardening, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 06 May 2014| Leave a Comment »

Iris in RainI kneel in the dripping ivy. A trowel in one hand, my other is deep in the soil, searching for the dandelion’s root. The root twists and writhes beneath my fingers, wet and tough, unwilling.

The rain taps across my hat’s felted brim, caresses my steaming back with its cool touch. The spring day is cold, but my work keeps me warm.

The bite of woodsmoke reaches me. I lift my nose and scent the air. My breath comes out a mist.

I grimace as digits plunge farther down into the black loam. The earth envelopes my hand, its serenity infuses me, my worries leach away.

I am the root, now. I am the plant. I am the garden.

k

Pine Pollen

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Yeah, No, and the Death of Uptalk

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , , on 01 May 2014| 9 Comments »

Stack of BooksThere are some things that I really dislike. No. I mean really dislike.

Take crop pants.

Crop pants are, perhaps, the single silliest and most unflattering article of clothing ever contrived for the female form (and, yes, I include the entire decade of the 1920s in this assessment). I’m not talking about Capri pants or pedal-pushers, both of which are fine in small doses; I’m talking about crop pants: those pants where some designer decided to cut the trouser legs off mid-calf, use less material, and charge more for it.

Ladies, crop pants make you look like hobbits. They make you look short, and make your feet look big. They truncate the lines of your form and exaggerate the size of your rear end. They are singularly unsatisfactory; you’d do better to roll up your pant legs like a sock-hopper. Seriously. If you own a pair of crop pants, burn them. You can thank me later.

As you can see, I hate crop pants. I shall always hate crop pants. If the world were to be destroyed and built again, giving us all a second chance, if it has crop pants in it I shall consider the entire enterprise a failure and not worth the effort.

Same goes for uptalk.

(more…)

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Sandwich Child

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 23 Apr 2014| 2 Comments »

Captive SlavesI’ve never given much credence to results of “studies” on human social patterns. We’re just too complicated to fit into neat little boxes. However, the other day I learned of one such study which so accurately described me, I had to give it a closer look.

I mention this here because this is the sort of thing that can be used to add depth to the histories of families and characters in my writing.

The study was about birth order and the “middle child syndrome.” Now, “birth order” is not new to me; I heard about it a long time ago but never paid it any attention because, frankly, my family situation doesn’t really fit any common form.

(more…)

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Not Another Word

Posted in Books, Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 17 Apr 2014| 2 Comments »

Over on Facebook, a reader mentioned a scene in FC:1 that she really liked. I like to investigate this sort of specific feedback–the good and the bad–to see what worked and what didn’t work for my readers.

I remembered the scene she mentioned in general, but not in detail. The main reason I wanted to investigate, though, was that her description of it as dialogue-free was not my recollection; I remembered it as being chatty to the extreme, as two swoony teenaged girls prattled on about how divine it was going to be to see Sarah Bernhardt on stage. (For those of you out of the 19th-century loop, Sarah Bernhardt was the Lady Gaga of her day.)

So, I pulled down my copy of The Year the Cloud Fell and tried to figure out what this reader had meant when she referred to the scene’s “shared communication and not a scrap of dialogue.”

(more…)

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A Close Shave

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 15 Apr 2014| Leave a Comment »

Stack of BooksNow that’s a first.

A novelist friend was complaining about the names she’d picked for her characters (they’re historical ethnic names, and have several diacritical marks). She was wrapping up a long series with these characters, and was looking forward to never having to write those names again.

I thought that was a good topic for discussion. There are lots of bad choices for character names; some annoy the reader, some annoy the writer. Then, halfway through composing my own post, I searched the web for a reference, and got a hit on my own blog.

Oops…I’d already written a post on the topic of character names (and what not to do).

I suppose it was bound to happen; there are only so many one can broach on the subject of writing. Of course, I’m a good enough writer that I could have taken a new tack on an old topic, but I don’t want to recycle subjects…not yet, anyway.

So, instead of boring you with a slightly different discussion on what makes a bad name, how about boring you with a discussion on what makes a good name?

No? All right. Another time, then. 😉

k

Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

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