Layering Personality

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Gratuitous pear tart photo. Mmm, that was delish!

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, in November, for you newbies) for many, many years. In fact, all but two of my novel ideas were born in November. That means eight out of ten. *good grief!*

I’ve learned that during NaNo, you don’t want to write quality. You don’t want to think. You just want to get 50,000 words down in thirty days. That means getting the bare bones of your idea down as fast as you can. In my case, sometimes I write scenes, sometimes just dialogue, sometimes a whole chapter. It doesn’t matter during November, as the goal is to cross the finish line. Verbal diarrhea and some stream of consciousness wandering is to be expected. There’s always time to ponder and correct and more clearly flesh out your ideas on December 1.

My current edit, from a NaNo completion in 2017, is really a doozy. The story is solid, but now I’m into developing the characters, all of whom on December 1, 2017 were pretty wooden and one dimensional.

Character development takes some introspection on the part of the writer. The more layered and nuanced the character, the more he/she will seem real to the reader.

These particular characters (four main ones) are adult siblings. Their father has just died. The relationships are all strained for one reason or another. While they shared the same parents, each one reacted to their upbringing differently. As with all siblings in the real world, they are not the same.

I’m not ashamed to say that during my long life, I have been in therapy a few times. Largely successful therapy, since now I look at myself and others differently. I can see where hurts, both real and perceived, can cause someone to act/react in a specific way.  I understand crazy, from the temporary illogical nuttiness to the lingering and truly batshit. I try to incorporate some of what I learned in counseling with regard to developing my characters. This is done in layers, like that old saw says, peeling away at an onion.

In cases like this, I find that answering questions for each character (regarding personality traits, motivations, etc.) to be most helpful. I’ve used these same set of questions for other novels. And yes, I use a separate notebook (yes, a physical paper notebook, with a pencil) for the novel and answer the questions for each character.

This exercise takes time to complete. Luckily for me, when I write using the computer during NaNo, I also have a notebook at my side, so a lot of my research is done while writing like a fiend.

Now, before I really get into the bones of editing, I take this information and my questionnaires and get into the heads of these people. This does take some time, especially if the characters are damaged. And these are.

I’m not going to complain how the rest of my life has taken over my time. Time is something I delegate, so it’s all my choice. But rest assured, I’m working on it.

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A Retreat From the Socials

Posted by Joanne Huspek

We recently sold our B&B, and while it’s been a couple of months, we had a lot of residual cleaning up to do. Now, finally! I have time to write and create!

gratuitous photo of California mussels

After selling our B&B (long story, doesn’t matter), we had a lot of transferring of information to complete. Since I am internet challenged, this took a lot longer than I’d expected. Yes, I am old, but also YES, the way to do things online changes almost daily. This resulted in me doing a lot more research (on a subject I don’t really care about) in order to get things done.

One of my tasks was to transfer ownership of the web site and the social media accounts. The web site transfer was a can of corn. So easy. I actually had people to talk to when I ran into trouble! I wasn’t left dangling in the wind! I loved it.

However, the transfer of social media was cumbersome. In fact, it was impossible. Having transferred in the two accounts on Instagram and Facebook just four-plus years earlier, I recalled the process as being tough, but not impossible. Plus about ten years ago, I closed my Boston terrier’s Facebook account two years after she crossed the rainbow bridge. It took about a month (Facebook asking for a death certificate – good God) but someone actually emailed me (asking for the death certificate), and after I insisted that Princess Grace Huspek was indeed canine, they deleted her account.

There’s no simplicity in the process any more.

It IS impossible.

After five weeks of trying, which included watching lots of meaningless YouTube videos, reading forums, and emailing “supposed” customer service, I figured out the only way to offload these two accounts was to off myself. Yup. Delete my accounts and all my pages completely.

First, I thought I might snag all my photographs from Instagram. WRONG! Once you post a photo on Insta, it belongs to them. Sure, you can download your information, but it looks like gobbledygook. Then I thought I might download my information from Facebook. Not so fast, little girl! They don’t want you to have that information either! Plus, if you ask for a general download, it only does from 2016 to present. Then you must ask for a download from 2008 (when I first joined) to 2015.

Screw it, I thought. I’m just going to zap my social existence out of the interwebs. Which is what I did.

Of course, both platforms want you to change your mind, so they give you a 30-day grace period. Not doing it, Zuckerboy.

In slowly weaning myself from “social” media (it should be called antisocial media for the obvious reason), I realized one thing: I don’t miss it. I knew I wasn’t going to miss the outright hatred and lies, from those I both knew and didn’t know at all. Social media is like dealing with an alcoholic parent. You want the love but you don’t want the toxic but yet you crave the love. It’s the election season and the lies and half truths are flying like cows in a tornado. I get a headache from too much of it (like 15 minutes worth).

I thought I would at least miss those people who were friends and who I regularly communicated with. But it’s been a few days now, and I don’t feel the hollow that I thought I would. Besides, the people who want to keep in touch with me have my phone number.

I started my withdrawal a few months ago, slowly, of course. I stopped carrying my phone on walks. (No hotel, don’t need it.) I started looking at my neighbors yards, I started to greet them, I started smelling the lilacs and roses and cut grass and whatever else I happened upon. I liked the sun on my face and arms. I got caught in a rainstorm and didn’t mind getting totally soaked. Hmm…I started returning to my previously grounded and human self.

Then I made a couple of friends. Hmm…ones I could smile at and laugh with and actually hold a conversation with, unlike the virtual world.

This re-grounding to the “Real World” coincided with some disturbing articles I’d read about the Internet and the artificial world. I’m totally anti AI, especially in the creative world, in writing, art, photography, music, etc. Creation of art is a completely human endeavor. It’s not meant to be easy; it’s meant to be a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. I believe you can’t achieve anything worthwhile without the learning experience, and the learning experience is a process of trial and error. Many trials, many errors.

It was especially galling for me to see photo posts on Facebook claiming to be actual places or animals or people, when to me you could tell these were AI. And then you can search online for a photo for a certain park or waterfall and see that the pictures weren’t even close. Or you would read something that sounded like a human might have written it, but was stilted and clumsy.

I know. People say it’s the “wave of the future.” That doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t make it real.

Anyway, I now have time to devote to editing. And I am, albeit slowly. Right now it’s the end of summer, and I’ve been busy canning and dehydrating what’s come out of my garden (not as much as last year). I’m fending off my pears from critters. I’ve been tying up loose ends all over the place. But I plan on posting at least once a week on this blog, to keep you abreast of what’s going on in my writing and human journey.

Oh…you can still find me on LinkedIn, Truth, and X. But I don’t hang out there.

Writing

On editing my current WIP, I decided to change almost all the names. This might seem easy with the Find-Replace function on Word, but it’s been seven years since I wrote the first draft, and I was used to those original names. I’ve also started a notebook (handwritten) complied from all the notes I wrote in three notebooks, so the information will be handy. I think the exercise of re-writing by hand is a good one. I tend to forget a LOT of what I’ve written. This will wake me up. And I’ve also taken copious notes on character developments, so I have to figure a way to weave those into the story line.

Estimated date of completion? Who knows. The sooner the better. I have seven more manuscripts to edit.

More to come…a lot more to come…

 

 

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Buried – And A Post Regarding (In)Hospitality

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Wow. It has been an incredibly long time since I’ve posted last.

Don’t worry. I’m still writing. And rewriting. I’m also still a business owner, which means I have to really squeeze out some time for writing and editing. This is not an easy task.

Then there was buying another house (can we say fixer-upper money-pit again?), the holidays, and my old Boston terror, Millie, finally crossed the rainbow bridge after 18 long years.

I’ve got plenty of blog posts on the burner, though, so never fear. I’m still here.

Recently, I took a two-week road trip to Florida, which gave me some ideas and opinions. So I will hopefully humor you with my musings.

Regarding (In)Hospitality

Things are tough all over.

Now in the hospitality business, I know it’s hard to find people. Good people. Any warm body that does not have an issue (smoking, drinking and drug abuse, general laziness, health problems, domestic issues, etc.) and can also make a bed, I’m giving them top salary and hugs and kisses. But it’s not just me. Hotels, motels, restaurants, and bars are having a difficult time finding anyone to work at all, much less an employee who is responsible, mature, and diligent.

(Now, if you’re a responsible, hardworking employee, I’m not talking to you. Just so you know.)

Even though I’m semi-retired, and semi-working, we still find an occasion to travel. It used to be you could drive for as long as your butt could take it, pull over, and find adequate lodging. Not anymore. Oh no. In the last few years, I’ve found horrible places to stay using that method. Places where the mattress was like a roller coaster, where the doors didn’t lock, where there were needles in the parking lot, where the toilet hadn’t been cleaned in ???, well, you get my point. Now a traveler must research heavily on Yelp or Expedia.com or another similar web site. I smartened up. The first thing I do is look at reviews. If you’re not a 7.5 or higher, you go to the bottom of the barrel.

The next thing I do is look for dog friendly establishments. I have two chihuahuas, and they are my travel companions.

Then I look for local eateries that are interesting and have high marks. I eat beef in Kansas and ribs in Missouri, seafood in the Gulf, Cajun in Louisiana. I keep lots of water and high protein snacks in the car. I might stop at McDonald’s for a coffee and a bathroom break, but nothing else.

My fussiness aside, I know it is difficult to hire good people. I’m in the same boat. I’m not unreasonable.

Here’s a few things I’ve noticed:

1. If you don’t want your guests to take a shower, you don’t put bath towels in the bathroom. Yeah. That pretty much tells me you want to just make the bed. (I told my husband we could forego bath towels at our place, but he nixed that idea.)

2. If you don’t want them to mess up the room, you won’t have a coffee maker in the room. I’ve actually stayed in really nice places (like the Bellagio in Vegas) and in basic dives like the beach motel (in San Francisco) and neither one had in-room coffee makers. Brilliant idea! You’ll save on trash can liners. However, that only works if you have a coffee shop nearby.

3. If you really don’t want your guests to mess up the room, you won’t have a mini fridge or a microwave in the room. That’s because a lot of people forget their take out (guilty here!) or they’ll put some sort of mystery food that readily explodes in the microwave. (In our establishment, only the deluxe rooms have a mini fridge and microwave. And yes, they take more to clean.)

4. Most hotel guest clerks don’t like being asked questions about nearby attractions or restaurants. Actually, they don’t like being asked questions at all! At our humble B&B, we not only answer questions, we give tours of the building, including an in-depth history. We point you to our favorite local eating establishments, to our favorite hiking trails, to the local grocery store, to the scenic (and sometimes scary) byways, and to the museums. (Better this than gambling.) I realize that too much information can be a bad thing, but when I travel, I like to tease the information out of the locals. Plus, I like to talk.

5. Some hotels don’t give you enough toilet paper. I get it. The spare rolls in our hotel disappear at an amazing rate. Why I have toilet paper in the car, along with the snacks and water. I’m always prepared.

6. Always, always, look under the bed. My chihuahua has found a lot of interesting things under beds, and I don’t mean dust bunnies. Me? I’ve found underwear, dog toys, a box of bullets, clothing, trash, etc. Actually, you should always look in the drawers and in closets. I found a hand gun once that one of our guests left behind. (Not the same guy with the bullets, but coincidentally in the same room. What’s up with that?)

After all this research, I found that I had to take a vacation from my vacation. This exhausting research was killing me.

 

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That Time the NYT Found Me

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Thanks to this article, and this one, the New York Times recently tracked me down and talked me into doing this:

I know. Terrible picture.

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Facebook is No Longer Fluent in Sarcasm…

Posted by Joanne Huspek

…and irony is way above their heads too.

I joined Facebook in 2008, right after the mandate that users had to be college students fell to the wayside. For years before that, I had belonged to another large social media site, which, like Facebook, started out loads of laughs (that paid their users, imagine that!) but by 2007 the veneer had weathered through to reveal the true nature of social media – mean-spirited sniping, back stabbing, and all the trappings of antisocial dysfunctional behavior. So despite huge monthly payments, I fled.

Enter Facebook, in 2008 mostly filled with snarky college students. The biting wit was unique and fun. As when I joined Twitter (and everything else), the first year I was observing, not making many comments. Basically, I was trolling my college aged kids. I joined a few groups. When the other “social” site collapsed, most of them fled to Facebook, and we took up where we left off, with a lot of twisted wit.

I bring this up because the current “Community Standards” arm of the Book of Face has twice in one year flagged comments I made. Comments that wouldn’t have turned anyone’s head back in the early 2010s.

Twice? Only twice, you say?

Like many people, I don’t spend much time on Facebook anymore. It’s just no fun. Where I used to comment with wild abandon, when I do hang out for a minute, I don’t delve into commentary, nor do I throw linguistic Molotov cocktails. (Just in case Facebook pajama boys are listening, I don’t throw literal Molotov cocktails either. The best cocktails are served during happy hour, and we wouldn’t toss those.) The tide has turned, as has the worm, and “free” speech is no longer a thing anymore. Simple words can cause so much angst, it’s not worth the (Facebook jail) time to type them. Opinions are best kept to yourself.

The one sentence I typed (to a friend), was “If we don’t get together while you’re here (meaning in my city), I’m going to hunt you down like a dog (meaning I would force her to go to lunch with me. I would pay!).”

I don’t know what was offensive there. Hunting? Hunting her down as though she was a dog? Although she knew I was speaking in jest. I haven’t hunted anything for decades. Or was it ME the dog? Me the bloodhound and I would (literally) dog her to her hotel room?

It didn’t matter. I deleted the comment. There’s no Facebook tribunal. There’s no appeals process. You’re stuck with whatever they deem is the correct verdict.

Then last week, a friend of mine posted that her husband was finally getting his s*** together and was working on a project she’d been after him to start making progress with for weeks. My response was something like “some people need a kick in the derriere to get them going.”

This also was flagged for a violation of “Community Standards.”

(Honest to God, I can’t believe I’m writing about this.)

Did they (FB) really think there was intended violence in my comment? That my friend (who is small) would kick her husband (who is very tall) in the butt to get him motivated to start a project? Or that I would drive twenty miles from my home and do it myself? Do they not know we are all old people?

Does Facebook speak French?

Personally, I enjoy getting kicked in the butt every now and then. I’m basically a lazy person. If there weren’t someone cheering me on, or cattle prodding me into action, or leveraging my motivation with bribes of some sort, I would have never finished my first novel (or my second, or fifth, or ninth). Such phrases are ironic.

Definition: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning

My opinion writing is mostly sarcastic.

Definition: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain (psychic, not physical) [my addition]

People who know the difference between language and a real threat of pain have a sense of humor.

Definition: that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous : a funny or amusing quality.

I then remembered that as a Facebook newbie, I joined two groups. I decided to look them up. One was “I am Fluent in Sarcasm”. Back in 2008, it was salty and fun. Now it’s a repository of scam ads and is no fun. The other rather entertaining group I belonged to was “I Hate Rachael Ray with the Fire of a Thousand Suns.”  It still exists, although Rachael Ray is off the air, and the participants still hate Rachael Ray. How “hatred” can be tolerated in the post modern, bleeding heart sensitive current Facebook world is beyond me. I would have thought some righteous snowflake would have objected to a bunch of people who hate a celebrity.

My conclusion: Facebook is not fluent in sarcasm. Facebook doesn’t want anyone to have fun.

Another good reason to limit my time there.

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Icing on the Cake – More on Editing

Posted by Joanne Huspek

This post pertains to mostly NaNoWriMo works, but I guess it could apply to any first draft.

My mantra is “I’m writing as fast as I can!” and during November NaNoWriMo attempts where almost all my first drafts originate, that’s exactly what happens: I write as fast as I can possibly write. It’s essential if you want to make 50,000 words in 30 days or less. I will make time for at least 45 minutes, I wish for an hour, but I sometimes only have 20-30 minutes to get 1,667 words down.

When I’m in Speed Mode, I typically do not put in descriptors. I don’t labor over sentences, their structure, pretty prose, or anything else. I don’t put in “tags” (he said, she said). I see my scenes in my head, very much like like watching a movie, and while I’m writing quickly, I want to spew it all out before I forget what I’m doing and where I’m going. I’m terrible at dialogue anyway, and writing dialogue in this manner forces me to complete the task. (Then I read it over, out loud, but that’s another part of editing.)

Compare this to my first couple of NaNoWriMo attempts (Finding Cadence, Virtually Yours) where I belabored every move I made. If a person has time, maybe that works. In all my life, I rarely have “spare” time – I have to make it, and when I make it, I must use it wisely. It took two and a half years to finish the rough draft of Finding Cadence (two NaNos and then some). Sometimes I spent days on a paragraph, which is not a bad thing, but get the story down first! I ended up with with 75,000 more words than I needed, mostly because I was flummoxed by my sentences. Believe me, cutting is worse than the alternative!

The alternative? Icing the cake.

You have a cake (or a story). The bones of it are there. It’s a good cake. It’s tasty. But that’s all there is, C A K E. It’s dry. It needs something.

I noticed first off in re-reads that my tags were missing. You don’t need them in every sentence with two people speaking to each other, but definitely you need them with three or more, otherwise you’ll get lost. Once the tags are in, I noticed that I was missing the tone and setting of the conversations. Body language, facial expressions, the situation of the room. Yes, you know what’s going on with your story, it’s in your head, but unless you’re very concise, your readers won’t have a clue. (I remember when my editor read my first draft of Virtually Yours, he saw my characters as different people than what I saw. That’s because I didn’t describe them very well.)

After inserting tags, I usually run my manuscript through a word counter, like SmartEdit, using a list of overused words and/or phrases. You can find lists of them online, like this one. I’ve also picked up many lists from the San Francisco Writers Conference workshops. If you don’t have or use SmartEdit, you can use your Find/Replace function on Word. I allow for a certain number of the same word (let’s say “important” – in Cadence it was “family”) but if I see I have several hundred (or thousand! yes, that’s happened!), I will think of an alternate word or phrase that can do the same job but differently.

This part of the editing is where you add the icing. THIS is where you work on sentences and paragraphs, shine them up, add descriptive prose. This is where you work on clarity. Where you add the pretty pink flowers.

Re-read once you’ve finished this part of editing. I’ll also make notes in my notebook, because as we know, I’m severely computer challenged. These written notes will contain the page numbers where I noted the anomaly. (I might change it later, or I might not.) If you can, read at least the dialogue out loud. It won’t be perfect, but when people speak, they rarely do so perfectly.

This draft won’t be ready for print, but it’ll be closer to the finished product.

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Updates + The True Components of a Story

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Picture of California mussels from about five years ago. No reason, just liked them.

So much for two blog posts a month. I really had every intention of writing at least two a month, but life gets in the way (doesn’t it always?).

I started working on the first WIP last month. In fact, I took a rather impromptu trip to Florida, driving down with my two chihuahuas. I had the print out in my suitcase; I had pens and pencils, notebooks, and my computer. I actually had TIME too, because the first couple of days in Florida were unseasonably chilly (36 degrees for a low, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heat), and I wasn’t going to do any outside activities until the conditions improved.

I forgot to add in my last post about how I edit is that after I’ve got the first draft down, I usually make an outline, usually in a notebook. (I’ve been known to print out a calendar page, or to draw a map too.) This isn’t so much to keep the story on track, it serves another purpose. Since 99% of my manuscripts were written during NaNoWriMo, and about 70% of those correspond to a specific day in November, this sets up a time line. In the one I chose to work on first, for example, the story takes place over seven days in November, with five siblings. I sometimes use note cards too, although doing so seems rather archaic in the modern times. It works for me.

Somehow, I got through the outline stage, and then the weather improved, so I never got beyond that point. I drove home. A few days later, I was poking around in my computer (deleting the deadwood) and found yet another manuscript! So I printed it out, and got ready for yet another edit. For some reason, I decided to edit this one instead of my original choice. Why? I guess I liked the characters better, and they tie into Finding Cadence (by a long shot, but it’s there), plus another manuscript that is now in the hands of a beta reader.

Does any of this make sense? No. Well, that’s to be expected, as I’m a hot mess.

And now,

The True Components of a Story

I’m very old, and very old school. I was taught that there were certain components of a story that were etched in stone.

One, a story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Seems fairly straightforward. Anything else, like ramblings and stream of consciousness, is just that, rambling and stream of consciousness, or poetry.

Two, there must be some sort of conflict. In my day, there were only three types of conflict. Man against Man, Man against Nature, Man against Himself. A Man against Man example would be 1984. The whole world was against Winston. Man against Nature? The Old Man and the Sea. Damn that fish. Man against Himself? Perhaps any novel where the protagonist has self-doubt could qualify. And perhaps any novel can contain all three conflicts. (In Finding Cadence, for example, Cadie has plenty of human enemies or antagonists. She also nearly drowns in the ocean after nearly dying of pneumonia. And she has plenty of self-doubt and is arguing with herself quite a lot.)

Another component I think is so necessary is the Good vs. Evil component. (I realize these days there’s not much for “good” vs. “evil” as some are trying to portray that nothing is evil. The lines are definitely blurred. I disagree strongly. If nothing is evil, there is nothing to overcome.) The protagonist’s struggle must overcome “evil”. Yes, it’s an arc in the story, but without a sense of ethics and morality, the arc isn’t going to work well.

When watching Disney movies with my kids when they were young, my husband was quick to point out the “bad guys” and the “good guys” and always asked my kids who they thought would prevail and why. This is so necessary in story telling. Even the Native Americans had this in their spoken stories, even my Japanese ancestors’ fables had this. So in writing, making the “bad guy” even worse (without going completely off the rails) is a good idea so that your reader will know who to root for. Of course, you don’t want to make him a monster. A little humanness in your antagonist is a good thing, just as a little off-kilter meanness makes for a good protagonist.

These things are the makings of a good story. Everything else is just icing. Gravy. A cherry on top. My next post will be about the specifics of making your story stand out and shine.

I hope I’ll get to it before next month. 🙂

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