Cookie Completion

Let this post stand as a testament to determination, literacy, contrivances, plot devices, randomness, creampuffs, and above all else, unmitigated genius—for last night, on the 27th of May of the year 2009, Krispy and I completed our first long term collaboration.

The Christmas Cookie is complete. It is baked. It is fragrant and delicious. There are further cosmetic plans for it currently underway, but the text itself stands alone as a monumental effort some six months in the making.

Final word count is ~105,000 words. It can be done. 80,000 is average novel length. We can do it. We did it. We are amazing. Yes, I am stroking our egos madly, but mostly I am impressed that we pulled so much off in such a short time span.

Collaboration works! It really, really does. I think that I'd been attempting to write this solo, it would have petered off any number of times, and gone in fits and starts, and eventually it would have trailed off while I moved on to something else and only came back a year later to work on another couple of pages before prancing off again. But the creative madness that ensued in playing page ping-pong with someone else served as sufficient motivational force to keep us writing on a regular basis, I think.

This is probably the most writing I've ever gotten out of Krispy on such a consistently regular day-to-day basis. Thank you, Krispy, and congratulations. KEEP IT UP. ♥♥♥

Character Chats

So recently through the wonders of the internet (Twitter-hopping in this case), I made the acquaintance of the lovely Danyelle (aka Windsong) at Carpe Mousa. A few weeks ago, she started a fun exercise titled Character Chats, in which a prompt is posted for characters to respond to.

I tried one out this last week and my entry was one of the ones chosen to my surprise and delight! :) The prompt was about Obligations and Duty. So if you're interested in meeting one of my favorite angels or just joining in on the fun, pop on over to this Character Chat post at Carpe Mousa and check out the other entry from Yunaleska - about a princess who must make hard choices - while you're at it.

Slow-Baking

So our Holiday Cookie has been slow-baking in Krispy's oven for a while now. Amazingly enough, we managed an amazing three-four months of cookie-ing back and forth nearly everyday! This unprecedented streak of sheer genius produced a whopping 155 pages of dinnertime story—97,603 words so far. That's nearly 2x as much as Nanowrimo demands! To our dearly beloved friend to whom this cookie is dedicated: You shall be amazed when you read your severely belated Christmas present in its entirety.

Alas, but we have slowed down during April. Krispy has Real Life and I am supposed to be doing Real Life things too, soon. The ball is in her park though and though progress has been slow, it is being made. (Plus she's been working on other exciting writing! Which she has yet to share with me, be it added. *cough cough*) I think we both needed a break—breatherspace!—time to reflect and recuperate and rejuvenate, and at any rate, I think our cookie needs only a bit more time in the oven before it's ready to come out and cool while sending out delicious wafts of sweetness.

And—

Damn if Krispy hasn't posted just as I was writing this post! And more or less on the same topic. With some of the same terms and wording! Clearly we're on the same sort of wavelength.

Well, having read Krispy's post now, most of my random maunderings are redundant as she's already stated them so delightfully well down below. GO, KRISPY, GO!

I shall just add in my two cents. In my writing program, professors have encouraged me to take a break from writing for a while—told me to sit back and not write anything at all for a couple of weeks, except perhaps in a journal. They said it might help give me perspective and time to get re-energized and re-enthused about the material. They said that I just need to power over and through that (writers') block and then I would see the shining light at the end of the clear path beyond.

What I did not tell them was that I was not writing furiously every free hour of everyday like they seem to think I was doing—I work spastically, either in little fits and starts and drabbles, or enormous quantities of unexpected text all at once. (Cookie, mind you, is an exception for some reason. I think the energy of collaboration and the momentum cookie had gained over the weeks helped a lot. A lot.) Probably I should practice writing in a more regular manner, but, well, years of attempting to do so have only gotten me this far so far. Probably I just need more discipline.

At any rate, being in this so-magical writing program, I've learned several things:

1.) Nobody has the same process of writing.

2.) What works for one person might not work for another.

2a.) This includes everything from plotting a novel to actually writing to environment to, well, everything.

3.) Nevertheless, it's a good idea to try all suggestions to see if they work for you.

4.) But if they don't work, then they don't work. Don't force it.

5.) And don't let people force you into it either. This includes professors.

6.) This black sesame-flavored soymilk drink they sell down at the café in little cartons is actually pretty good.

Now seeing as Krispy is being so diligent as to post, bask in free time, and write, I can't let myself not compare to her and damn straight that's a double negative! I'm going to make good on what free time I've got right now and write too!

Krispy prefers not to get Burnt

Wow, it's been a while since the last post. I apologize since I was the one who specifically promised this wasn't going to be a once-a-month update sort of deal. Real Life has been throwing its fair share of curves at me of late, and sadly, much of my writing has spluttered to a halt (like my studying for certain dreaded standardized tests), which actually brings me to the topic of this post.

Getting burnt out.

We've all been there, whether it was working on a project until you never ever wanted to look at another keyboard again or cramming for finals during that one excruciating week between you and glorious, glorious summer. We come out of these situations, usually, exhausted and possibly zombified. I know I'm not exactly the brightest crayon in the box after a grueling all-nighter or three.

The stress is there in Real Life, Unreal Life, and yes, even in Imaginary Life. And lately, it's been all over, up and down, and inside outside everywhere in mine, and my confidence and my writing have been affected by it. After a particularly trying week or two, I came to realize as I started new habits and reassessed some things that I was burnt out in an encompassing, general way. I was too tired to write. I couldn't concentrate on studying. My kankles made a nasty reappearance, apparently an indication of my physical exhaustion.

In response, my brain (and muse) checked out and went on a break. What essentially started out as my bad habit of procrastination (eh, don't feel like writing tonight) turned out to be just what I needed. A break.

Yes, we have priorities and responsibilities. Yes, we make time for writing/working/sleeping/sports/exercising/watching-tv/etc. if those things are important to us. Yes, we shouldn't just drop a project because things are not going our way. But it's also okay to take time for ourselves, to take a step back and breathe. Man is not machine, and it is possible to work oneself into an early grave (see President Polk).

More importantly, taking a break lets your mind and body rejuvenate. It lets you take another look at things - see the forest and not just the trees, if you will - and rethink the situation. It also helps you cope with the stresses and writers' blocks of life.

The wise Ms. Inkblot had a post a while back about the importance of having fun, where she makes the point that letting go isn't just great for writing, it's great in general. It's essential for not getting burnt out.

Perhaps one of the best things I learned from my meditation class at Cal was "unstructured free-time." My instructor emphasized the importance of giving ourselves time in the day to do whatever we wanted, to have fun, to relax. She told us to write it into our schedules, to willfully set aside that time for unstructured free time.

So, why don't you pencil into your planners some unstructured free time for yourselves. I'm going to go bask in the present moment, and then I'm going to write.

Stories within Stories within Stories within...

I'm sure that there's some specific literary term for stories that contain stories/narratives that contain narratives, but despite my long literary history, I have mostly failed at term-retention except for "hubris" which was one of my every English teachers' favorite words since freshman year of high school.

Anyway, in our Holiday Cookie, Krispy and I have boldly set forth to accomplish exactly that! No, not hubris, of which I'm sure I've plenty and probably Krispy has a healthy portion because we both lead tragic, tragic lives that incite fear and loathing in many and hey, every hero needs a tragic flaw—nay, but stories within stories! The Holiday Cookie has become the nesting ground for separate little tales contained within the larger narrative.

Why? Because I bullied Krispy into doing so. Our characters are finally at the dinner table and dinnertime conversation has drifted towards tale-telling. Also, it's a midwinter feast, and the grand tradition of Christmastime/wintertime ghost stories is a long and celebrated one—although, well, there haven't been any ghosts in the stories so far. Except for Krispy's, which had zombies. Zombies count.

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights is, of course, the most iconic example of stories within stories. Some crazy-nut of a king discovers that his wife is a bitch unfaithful and has her put to death, and then decides that he's going to marry a new virgin every day and have her put to death the next morning. Ah, the benefits of kinghood. This goes on for an unspecified but very loooong time, until eventually the daughter of one of the king's closest advisors decides to volunteer her pretty neck for the chopping block.

Nay, says her father, who loves her and incidentally does not relish the prospect of her imminent decapitation.

But Scheherazade is as clever as she is pretty! She has a plan! And so her father reluctantly yields to her will and she marries the king. That night she tells the king a fascinating story—but when the sun rises, like Battlestar Galactica, 24, and Heroes, Scheherazade ends the story on a cliffhanger, and the king decides to put off her execution until the next morning so he can hear the rest of the story. This gives her ample opportunity to continue weaving the tail of each tale into the next tale, until lo and behold, 1001 nights have passed and the king decides his earlier decision to execute his wives the morning after is bunk, and he keeps Scheherazade as his queen and they live happily ever after. Hooray.

Alice in Wonderland is a slightly different example more along the lines of what Krispy and I are doing. The novel is a novel, not a story collection with an initial story acting as a frame for the individual tales within; in Alice, the little mad tales of the Wonderland folk tend to be incidental rather than integral to the main narrative.

I know I've read quite a few other stories which incorporated further stories within their structure but for the life of me I cannot remember authors or titles except for Jane Yolen, who wrote at least two such short stories: "The Five Points of Roguery" and "Dream Weaver."

The first story contains the three much shorter and fairly clever anecdotal stories regarding the titular five points of roguery, including "One: The Eye," "Two: The Hand," "Three: The Voice," and the framing story which contains the other two points. The frame is essential for the final punch line.

The second story contains a blind dream-weaving woman who, for a coin, weaves visions and stories for passersby. The stories she weaves are fairytales and folktales ranging from humorous to dark to touching. In order, they are "Brother Hart," "Man of Rock, Man of Stone," "The Tree's Wife," "The Cat Bride," "The Boy Who Sang for Death," "Princess Heart O'Stone," and "The Pot Child." In this case, the frame is a little less essential compared to the other story; the individual tales can stand alone fairly well. The frame, however, pitches the stories in a deliberate context and allows for commentary and insight via the characters who receive the woven dreams. I daresay the stories are richer for the framework around them.

In the Holiday Cookie, well, the stories (there are four of them so far, each told by a different character, although two of them are actually the same story, just from different points of view) are nonessential. They don't have to be there, I suppose. Krispy and I started this whole shebang with a pretty basic premise—what happens if we throw all these people together for a dinner party?—and have been exploring and exploiting the situation for all that we're worth. Our stories within stories serve two basic functions: dinnertime conversation and personal entertainment.

Actually, the entire Cookie is for personal entertainment, ours and others'.

Upon such fragile sheets are monstrosities of literary confection half-baked.

Congratulations are in Order!

Like the title says, there are some congratulations to be made. Let's go chronologically backwards.

Back on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, it was our dear Val's birthday. Val is sort of the reason for the name of this blog and he is a character in the novel Alz and I have been discussing (though not recently because we've been sidetracked by a random side-project and the ever nefarious Real Life). He is sweet and a little bit of a pushover and he is entirely too easily overwhelmed for the task he has been assigned, but it's okay! We believe in you, Val! You will rise to the challenge! (or gloriously combust with the effort...) He was created more or less on Valentine's Day one year ago, which also accounts for his name. However, Val is not short for Valentine.

Now to go further back. On Feb. 5, Alz got her first paid acceptance for publication! The story will be in the 4th Jabberwocky anthology. So CONGRATS! to her. :)

Savory Scenes: Food where?!

I promised more posting for the New Year, yet here I am lagging. Anyway, I'm here to make up for it with a post about food and writing.

When you think of some of your favorite memories or best experiences, what do you think of? What makes up your recollection of that dreamy trip to France, that exciting cross-country road trip, or that amazing study abroad in China? What did you enjoy most at your last birthday party, Christmas, that family trip to wherever?

There are lots of things that come to mind I bet. The sights and sounds – the Eiffel Tower at night, singing 90s pop songs with nothing but road stretching ahead, laughing at your baby cousin playing the drum set in Rock Band even though she can't reach the foot pedal and barely knows what's going on.

Okay, but seriously, did you think of food?

No doubt you are thinking up some memorable Food Moments right about now. Some of my best memories are food-pervasive, and indeed, there are lots of holiday/family/socio-cultural traditions and behaviors that are at the very least held down by the kind of food served. What's Thanksgiving without turkey? In my family, that's the only time of year we EVER by a turkey and a huge slab of honey-baked ham. It just wouldn't be the same without those things present. For Lunar New Year (which started on January 26 this year), there are a number of "lucky" foods you're supposed to eat for good fortune and health in the coming year. One of the dishes should be a whole fish, and you aren't supposed to eat all of it so that you have leftovers, signifying an abundance of wisdom/wealth/fortune/etc. for the new year. My memory of this most recent Lunar New Year? PIZZA. 3 delicious creations I made at home with my sister and friend.

And when you leave a foreign country or different state/province/city after you've stayed, played, and eaten there, what do you miss? Honestly, I miss the food (if it's good, needless to say). I spent the past four years of my life at Berkeley, and yes, I miss my friends, the campus, bits of college life, but I also really miss the food – chicken tikki masala at Curry House, Lion King rolls at Sushi House, pizza from Cheeseboard, Chai Lattes and fluffy foccia-bread sandwiches from Sufficient Grounds, freaking love-of-my-college-life Bianca Mochas from Café Strada. They were part of what defined my experience at Cal, and I capped off my graduation with dinner at ritzy Chez Panisse with my roommate of four years.



Two months in Taiwan this past summer and among the many amazing things I experienced, I miss the abundance of cheap and delicious foods, especially snack foods. But especially, especially, snowflake shaved ice. There are so many Taiwanese people around where I live, but why is there no snowflake shaved ice?!



So the point here wasn't to make you drool (and if you are, watch your keyboards!). It's to show that food is an integral part of our experience, sometimes a definitive part. It's obviously necessary to our survival but it's also in our psychology, our societies, our cultures, and thus in our literature. It comes as something of a surprise to me then that I find very little time spared on food in my earlier writings and even now in my "serious" projects (there's tons of food in silly things I write). When food is mentioned, it's mentioned in passing as an environmental detail or note on perhaps the direness of a situation where characters find food scarce. On a somewhat higher level, it might be used as a personality quirk/indicator for a character. Basically though, where there is food, its use is very functional.



But as we discussed, food can be and actually is so much more. It's evocative, romantic, metaphoric, sentimental, and culturally significant: tea and tea traditions in various parts of the world (e.g. UK, Japan), everything about chocolate, the pomegranate that sealed Persephone's fate, the famed Apple of Eve's eye. So, I wonder why I'm having a hard time thinking of creative uses in fiction for food, especially in speculative fiction where all sorts of crazy magical things happen, but what? No food? In SciFi/Fantasy, off the top of my head, I can only think of the drink klah from the Dragons of Pern series, and lambas bread from LotR but honestly, I haven't read all of the LoTR trilogy and only remember that from rather hilarious outtakes/fandom crack from the movie franchise.

Of course, this ignorance may be due to my own limited reading and imperfect memory, but food and food traditions seems to be an underused part of world/character-building.

In other genres of fiction, I can think of more interesting or at least more prominent roles for food. There's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the setting and candy are practically characters themselves, and there's Chocolat, which I'm going to admit now, I've never read but I loved the movie. The chocolate in that story was used both in the literal sense and as a metaphor for passion and the richness of life. Jhumpa Lahiri uses the specific ingredients and process of making Indian food to help characterize her protagonist in a short story (the title of which escapes me) from Interpreter of Maladies; the smells of the spices is a key part of how the young boy in the story remembers her. The food not only speaks of the woman's past and culture, but it draws parallels to the scope of her life and is indicative of gender roles.

This under-use of food seems at least kind of related to how taste is less used than sight or sound in descriptive writing. Taste is just kind of hard to describe, but food isn't and I think all our worlds would be richer if there was just a little bit more of it. After all, our memories and experiences certainly benefit from the presence of food.

What are your best memories of food? What are other examples of great food/taste usage in fiction? When have you creatively written about food or used it to enrich a character/world? I'd love to hear about it because I'm a big fan, and I'm sure you are too.