Compress, diminish, decrease

For the words of the title I looked up the antonyms of expand at thesaurus dot com, which is, by the way, an excellent source of words for me as a foreigner and a translator of English.

And the reason?

Every or every other year our writers group issues a book centered around one theme. The last one was around food for example.

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The theme of the next (2016) issue is finding new homes, approaching and/or welcoming strangers, or strangers in general arriving to new destinations.

I guess the idea was inspired by the waves of migration and by the thoughts wrapped around the whole package.

I do not wish to elaborate on that particular matter.

We are all entitled to have opinions and we all do/think as we see fit. But I digress.

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A couple of years ago, like 3 or 4 years ago I had this idea about a novel. I imagined the central figure a young man about 20~25 who encounters a stranger. They make friends. The protagonist is a simple young countryman living in the 19 century. The stranger, our protagonist does not (yet?) know, is someone from outer space or from somewhere else I don't know yet :) The stranger has come to destroy our culture as his ancestors has been doing it little by little over the centuries. The protagonist welcomes the stranger not knowing that helping him eventually will cause some major problems.

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Now, this 2016 book requires a short story.

So I guess I may compress my idea of a novel into a short version. Or I just may explore one small detail of the plot in general. I don't know. I am unsure, but at least there is a drive within me.

I may not never write that novel set in a historical time. That is too big a chunk for me, unexperienced, anyway.

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My question: do you write short stories to explore a certain part of the realm of your novel, backstory, whatever?

I guess it is a good idea.

 

Garage sale ~ a public reading

Public readings in our writers' group are usually quite cozy. It's mostly just us, members of the group, one or two relatives and random passers by.

But not this time.

I stopped counting the number of participants at 50.

And unlike in the past, we did not just read our stuff while sitting comfortably in our chair.

No.

This time there was a definite speaker's stand with a microphone.

Oh.

The one who read had to work his/her way in to the front of everyone and read standing by the wooden stand and speak to the microphone while facing the audience.

Oh. My. Stage. Fright.

But I survived!

And managed to get some words of honest appreciation, too.

Here how it worked.

The theme this time was "Garage sale". Eleven members of the group had one item. These items were made into a list. The task was to write anything in your style and plot of preference. There was a word count limit and you had to incorporate your item plus at least 4 other items from the list.

All the items were displayed for the audience to see the whole time.

My item was a pair of rubber boots. Other items included a perfume bottle, a set of poker cards in a box; a weaving loom,  a diary, a painted Maria with Jesus and so on.

I recall a short surrealistic poem about the contents of a room; a mysterious short story about a weeping Maria in a Greek hotel; a funny short piece about a Soviet spy during WW II; and a dramatic piece that involved the recalling and erasing of memories while developing photographs in a dark room. There were 20 readings.

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My piece was about an elderly couple. At the beginning the man chops wood kindlers for the stove, but the lady calls him inside and dislikes his cutting the wood in those rubber boots. She insists that chopping firewood in those boots is silly, for the small waste falls into the boots making the job uncomfortable. The argument turns into a heated one. At the end the man sets the set of poker cards flying into the air by kicking the box. Finally he returns to chopping, to his axe and keeps wearing the boots and lets the small wate fall into the boots.

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With this short story I kind of looked into our future with my husband :) I wanted to write about arguing. Write an unpleasant conversation. Or something unsettling. Because this is what I usually DON'T write about. I sort of stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote about interaction between partners. I voiced their negative feelings towards each other. I also wanted to show their frustration. At the end of the day though, I don't think these two truly dislike one another.

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One commenter asked me whether I spied on some elderly neighbours. She found my characters so alive that she said I must have eavesdropped some of their conversation.

Another commenter said that my piece was among the best reads this evening and she was able to imagine a complete novel around this couple.

More than one commenter said that part of the success of my story came from the way I presented it.

Well, I did rehearse it like 2 or two times, but I thought I was uneasy with the microphone, with speaking behind  a formal speaker's stand. Wow. A success :) I mean I thought the story was among my better ones, but getting praised for presentation? That surprised me :)

Crossroads

I am stating the more than obvious when I say that I am not a writer.

For a writer writes.

:)

Some people write for getting their names printed. I am not one of them. Well, not now. I used to be that person but since I have been publishing professional articles in monthly agriculture magazines since 2009 I am good. The need to get my name on printed paper is checked.

Some people write for getting paid. With those magazines? Check.

Some people write for handing out advice, to get their opinion heard with masses. With those magazines? At times, check, too. 

Some people strive to enter the realm of literature or at least, some part of it.

Well, I also got into two of the anthologies of our writers' group these years. I got only into two and not four because I declined the latter two opportunities for financial reasons.

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But some people write because there is something buggering them and they either found the solution or are in the way to get there. Well at times, I am one of those.

There is hope :)

You know, I wonder if those magazines get all my creative juices and there is nothing left for 'other' writing.

If this is not the case then I am either 1) lazy or otherwise hindered to get my thoughts in order and set writing or 2) I have nothing to say.

If writing articles for magazines do take my juices it means that I am low on writing power then I have two options 1) accept it and write only when absolutely needed. Those do happen, mind you. But like one or two times a year. 2) raise my activities in one way or another.

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So much for today and I am leaving for the moment with this photo.

Taken in 18 November 2015 in the Pilis Mountains.

Oh well, this Thursday our writers' group is to have a public reading. More on that later.

Mixed emotions

(I am too lazy to browse around older posts to see whether this topic was covered or not, but either way...)
(And I feel kind of, no, kind of really stupid) to keep bragging about the very same novel I wrote in 2010. Every new post about the Copper Moon is a proof that I wrote the first draft and did nothing significant else with that particular writing ever since. It drowns me a bit. Copper Moon should have been edited and printed and sold out. Not in its present form, mind you, I know it's far from perfect...)
....
So one of these days I realized that it still lingers within me, although I don't think of being capable of adding another paragraph or page without the reader noticing the difference.
Five years passed and I changed.
I might not want to convey the very same message that was important for me back in 2010.
I might want to shift focus.
I might have to give up on it totally...if the non~writing/editing/polishing of it keeps drowning me.
....

Different types of escapes

(You may want to see the official definition of escape.)

The role of writing in escaping, and writing as an escape in general: issues that have always been in the focus of writers.

Some write to create a whole new world, new sets of rules, new buddies, new tasks ~ anything new, other~wordly, or simply 'anything else' will do instead of those the writer faces in his everyday life.

Some write create a parallel universe to fantasize about their real~life problems. These writers tend to kill their demanding and unjust boss, take over the rule of the world (or at least, a small village), get their loved ones, or ditch their present ones.

~

At the moment I can not think of a third (or fourth) category (type), so feel free to add your ideas in the comments section. Genuinely new categories will be incorporated to the post.

~

Escapism must be coming from a problem unsolved.

I guess any type of escape can help the writer (or the reader) find the solution to his problem. For the first glimpse the first type looks more creative, but the second one a better way to cope with the original problem, but my judgement is biased as my escape~writing belongs to the second category.

What is your take on the usefulness of these two (or more) types?

Where do you feel your writing belongs?

(if you write for escape, that is...)

Owe me, owe you

Yesterday I finished a short story, where the ending is based partly on my memories. This is a haunting, a nightmare~ish memory, the one you keep repressing, yet eventually, it has to see the sunlight.

I worked along the story to have this memory well grounded, and when I was writing, memories of the past have, for some minutes, become things of the present, and I underwent the same pressure again.

As with all therapeutic writing, it took much of the stress away from me and I felt liberated.

But here comes the uneasy part:

This writing was not intended to entertain/educate only me, this writing will be read at a reading evening of our writers' group this Friday.

(I have already contacted someone to read it aloud for me...so I am not worrying about my massive stage fright)

The question rather is that am I able to make the experience as important for the reader as it was for me?

I owed myself this story, but I also owe the reader (or the listener) to be able to grasp it.

This is the trouble of writing from one's own experience: the writer has bits of information he knows so well and feels so minute and/or evident that he leaves them out of the story. Yet these are needed for the experience to be complete.

On a second thought....

I know that no reader/listener will feel the exact same thing what I felt. No problem with that.

But he has to feel something not unlike to what I felt.

How do you overcome the problem of writing things out, writing about haunting memories? How do you make the feeling as memorable for the reader as it is/was to you?

an exhibition

This Friday, I wish you, my kind readers were all here to celebrate the opening of an interesting exhibition.

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The story in short:

Some young fine artists living in the town created drawings, photos and paintings. They let us, members of the writers' group see copies of their work months before the exhibition.

Any member who found inspiration in any of the works was free to write anything using the artwork as a prompt. There was only one restriction: the writing should be readable while standing next beside the original artwork in the exhibition room, that is, no writing should be long.

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I wrote two poems and one short prose for three of these artworks and there will be two exhibited. One of the poems will not be placed there because the artwork itself will not be displayed for reasons beyond my understanding.

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First of all, I love that this project inspired me to write three pieces. I find it so difficult to get anything written these days, I am not urging or pressing it, I miss writing, that is :( So having written these two poems and a short prose was quite fulfilling.

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The exhibition starts this Friday and will be available for anyone interested for a month at the local library's exhibition and mess hall for free.

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So should by any chance any of you come to Hungary, please contact me and I will guide you through the exhibition. :)

And I would love to share my writings here, but they are not translated yet :(

Here's a link to the artwork, I don't think it will work, but let's try it for once.
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And here's the invitation:

determined to not write a novel or what?

the picture below is NOT to judge any differences between novelists and other authors. it did seemed appropriate though to demonstrate different approaches. and i don't know if there is a chance to switch between a hare and a tortoise. i don't even know if it is necessary to yearn for such a change.

here's the story.

the gazillion's read of my Copper Moon concluded in finding said novel a short story. an extremely looooong short story. there are no real conflicts, no real evolution of some of the characters (well, at least the main character should show some signs of development - and i don't think the mental and physical changes she present qualify as signs of major development...)

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the story i wrote lacks some of the important elements of a novel. period.

but as for the reason behind?

here are my takes (and i hope to hear yours in the comments section .... )

it is either

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1. the result of my previous experiences with writing.

you know, i am a free-lance journalist. i mostly write on agriculture-related subjects like how to deal with rodents in your house, how to build up a glass house and what are the most important gardening activities of a month and the like. i translate scientific papers. it's all neat and dry and i have no problems with that.

but a garden pond has no character development and the species composition of arthropod assemblages of potato fields show no conflicts either.

it is all description.

and as for literature? some of you might have read some of my pieces.

it's short prose at its best, but mainly flash fiction and poetry.

these are reflections of a state.

no development. nothing long-ish that starts somewhere and goes to a definite direction.

flash fiction is okay, because that reveals a status quo.

but composing a decent short story had gave me hard times and i did not excel at all.

so, reason number one: lack of experience.

potential reason number 2.

my status. my own character.

what if some people are just not 'natural born novelists'?

what if a person's certain psychological factors determine one's affection towards a certain type of writing?

say, a person who loves life, indulges in many activities, lives whole heartedly tends to write romantic stories with lots of actions?

say, someone else, who tends to analyze people around him favours to write psychological stories instead, with less of real actions but more beneath the surface?

what if a natural conflict avoider just can not bring his characters into a real conflict?

someone who is content with contemplating the events of life without interruption just finds content in describing status quos?

if the latter is the case, it is not my characters who are in trouble.

i am :)
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as for the time being i read, and read, and read :)
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photo credits:
http://dscottangle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/tortoise-and-hare.jpg

howl along with me :)

for i am excited.

at the end of the second round the editors UPDATE: one of the editors chose my writing to get published as an e-book.

i know next to nothing about e-books.

i don't know if this ruins/lessens/alters the chances of getting it printed in a traditional book.

for when it comes to e-material, i for example, don't spend a penny.

ahem, i know, it is quite a debated issue, so let's not talk about it :)))

still...

i am EXCITED, excited and excited a bit more, and i howl for two reasons:

1

it is full moon

2

full moon has a definite key position in my story. if it was of any doubt for any of you, my Margaret is a werewolf :)))

being excited is one thing, and i am still to hear your similar stories. share any of your strange reactions when your first/second short story/novel/thing was accepted/published.

some note on Vesper's reply

i received the manuscript red all over and i liked it :))))
it means Vesper have thoroughly combed it, and found, i suspect, all the grammar mistakes.
i don't mind my grammar corrected - i use less english these times and my knowledge is failing. i have to get back in shape.
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as for vocabulary, i'm so glad she checked it, too. at times i must have picked a words from a Hungarian- English dictionary without actually checking the words current meaning in one of the online English-English dictionaries. it is a great advice to check the words before using them the only trouble is you (=someone who's native language is not English) are never sure about which words to check... sometimes you have a rare word, you think you know the meaning, but you are wrong.
i think i've got to be more careful with rare or old words.
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reading some occassional 'very nice image' among her inserted comments pleased me quite much :)))
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and in some places my writing was not clear enough.
i will have to go through the text, which i will do gladly.
here's one example. the original text is interrupted twice by Vesper's remarks.

The stand [V1] was still soaked in the darkness of the night and the trees kept hissing [V2]

[V1] I’m not sure what you want to say here.

[V2] Interesting choice of words…

for V1, the stand refers to the place where Hail (the main character) spent his night. this stand is mentioned in a couple of sentences before. Hail has already left it. perhaps this reference is late and should be inserted a bit earlier. 'being soaked in the darkness...' is supposed to mean that it is still dark. i know 'soak' refers to a thing/object/material/textile being saturated by some liquid, but i thought it would make a nice and fresh expression.

for V2, for 'hissing trees', i went for something to express how the small branches and leaves kept rustling, crackling among one another. i wanted to add a sense of danger.
perhaps i was wrong with that idea.... perhaps this just doesn't work in English.
:)
i will have to revise and possibly re-place this sentence.
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finally, i would like to express my thanks again for her.
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halo - the first reader

Vesper, the first one to read Halo besides me, has finished reading. she keeps me informed about her opinion about the piece via email. it feels so great and exciting.

i'm patiently waiting for her comments on the story and her grammar suggestions.

this flower goes out to honor her time and efforts.

One

Phew, I'm back from the writers' club event I attended for the first time last evening.

- I'll be back with details soon.

a simultaneous post

Well, my home computer is broken but will be up and ready within a few days.
Surprisingly enough, I seem to enjoy the peace the lack of internet means in our home.

In the meantime, let me draw your attention towards my other blog called Gondolatok az erdőben. Don't get warned away by the Hungarian title. I write my blog in English (well, the one I know).
The Hungarian title means 'thoughts in the forest', or 'forest thoughts', and is basically about anything I face in my real or imaginary life.
Whenever I have anything to publish is getting published here. Poems, writings, photos and musings about everyday...it's all there, while this one is about writing only.

Thanks for your attention.

Outlining and changing the plot a bit

Preface

Dear all, I'm just a beginner at writing a larger piece.

All those writing exercies I find here and there are extremely helpful in polishing my skills. Also are the constructive comments I got from you.

To have or not to have an outline

I started writing 'Copper Moon' without an outline.

In fact I wrote a piece and then decided to extend it along the lines of the story.

As I saw the protagonist in my head, her features and actions were clear as they could be.

But when I started writing it, my mind wondered over here and there and I felt that I was loosing it.

(Like this entry....)

What was the problem?

I kept repeating myself 'I should have done an outline' and 'I am suffering the lack of a neat outline'.

But my problem might have been either the lack of outline or something else.

Changing the plot

The thing is that the protagonist does not fit into the 'box' the very first piece suggests.

I was reluctant to change the protagonist to make her fit for the expectations AND to give up ANY of the suggestions occurred in the first piece.

In fact I was stuck to the 'outline' provided.

All right that was not an outline, per se...

If you read it HERE, and read some of the readers' comments, you see what I mean.

Writing a story about a werewolf and or serial killer seemed interesting. And it still is, to me!

But as far as I see, and as far as I see it NOW, this suggested atmosphere does not fit my protagonist.

Feeling right ->Back to writing

So, after gaining some confidence via writing completely different things andreceiving friendly pattings on my virtual shoulders, I'm focusing on the story again.

I feel stronger than ever that the flow and the potential outcome has changed....for better or worse?

The point is this: I feel no guilt for making this change.

This has been a great breakthough for me.

Perhaps, this, the fear of changing the plot, was blocking me. We'll see.

This story and the one in the oven

After all, it's my story and there's no plotline, other than mine, that is, other than the one that serves best the purpose of writing it up to my highest possible standards. I'm going to write this story to make the impression on the reader the clossests to the concept I have in my head - I hope I will succeed in doing so.

The changes I made fits the protagonist better.

When I wrote the first piece I had no intention of turning it into a 'large' short story. The first piece had a strong character and I wished to build p a story around her.

I kept her as a protagonist but the focus shifted.

The shifting happened quite early, but I was hesitating.

I still think the first piece is good and I might write another story about that protagonist. This werewolf/serial killer thing will surely give me at least one go. I think it's in me, but not this time. Not now.

Thanks for following me.

Am I a writer?

I found a meme on Jason's site.
No one tagged me, which I really don't mind.

This meme is about the 5 strong points of myself, as a writer.

This is where the main problem starts.
Am I a writer?

What are the criteria of being a writer?

Is there any?

Is it like.....

Do I write on a daily basis? Do I get payment for writing? Are my things published?

No, No, and no again.

Yet, I don't think these qualify.

Are there times when I feel like that what I have in my mind, my feelings, my experience (being spiritual, physical, world-ly, or supernatural, are to best dealt with by putting them on paper?

Are there times when you can't resist the need to write? No matter how rare these times are? When writing is the only solution?

Do I feel drawn back to what I have written just to make it convey the message more and easier?

So I sometimes just let my writings be as how they are?

Do I sometimes feel my writings are inseparatably from my inner part?

Yes, and yes to all.

Do they qualify?

To Jason I said I was more pessimistic and tended to focus on my weaknesses. He gave me some good words of advice, which cheered me up a bit.

I gathered some strong points of myself, yes.

But I might keep the results for myself.

I don't always consider myself a writer in the first place. I'm just someone who sometimes writes.