The Confabulator Cafe

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  • A System of Belief

    http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=342.0
    I played with these as a child. Likely the inspiration for my belief in The Line. Pulled from here.

    I believe in The Line.

    When humans first demarcated space they started telling stories. “Yours,” pointing to one side of a Line drawn in the dirt with a finger or a stick; “Mine,” pointing to the other side.

    Humans have evolved the line as they themselves have evolved, using it to define shapes of animals or other people in the service of telling a story. This culminated in the storytelling of cave paintings that started as early as 40,000 years ago.

    As far as my limited research has gone on the subject of cave paintings it’s obvious that scholars don’t know what purpose the paintings served. Whether for religious purposes or to brag or communicate that hunting in the area was good is a mystery. For all anyone knows, it may be the earliest form of “Kilroy was here”-type graffiti. Regardless, the paintings are a form of storytelling. Pictograms go back at least as far as cave paintings and culminate in Sumerian and Egyptian cultures, becoming more than just ancient versions of Powerpoint presentations, but actual language. (more…)

  • The Effective Intertext

    In teacher training classes, once we had to make a visual map of “A Day in the Literate Life.” The instructor intended us to examine all the literary tasks we performed each day, the better to understand the types of reading and writing we (and our students in the future) must be able to process. And I realized that I floated from one type of writing to another type of reading back to writing, constantly, throughout every day. My writing life is a natural extension of my reading life.

    On days when I feel pretentious and long for grad school, I might say that my inner voice constitutes a rich intertext, that I am the intersection between the many texts of my reading life, and in writing I bring all those input sources together. I honor the writing that has fed me by writing back at it.

    Or I might just say that I feel lucky to have read a lot of great books and want to express that gratitude back with some books of my own.

    Also, I have always been a hand raiser, one to talk in class–not because I wanted to show off, but because my larynx would burst if I did not get to talk within the next three minutes. And writing allows me to sound that barbaric yawp in quieter, better controlled ways. I write because I talk, because I am grateful, and because I want to participate in the conversations that have shaped my life and mind.

     

  • {Insert Clever Title Here}

    Wasn’t sure how to approach this week’s assignment, so I went for simple: here’s a brief history of my writing experience.

    Years ago during a drive back home from graduate school with my then girlfriend (and now wife) to visit my parents, I took some NoDoz. I’d never taken any kind of anti-drowsy medication before, and I was skeptical that it would work. I was known to chug Mountain Dew right before going to bed, with no ill effects. How could two little caffeine pills matter?

    About an hour into the drive, my eventual spouse turned to me and asked, “How are you doing?”

    “I’mdoinggreat!ButIhaveawholelotofthingsIwanttotalktoyouabout!”

    Yes, it was that frantic and fast. No, I’ve never taken NoDoz since that day. What did I need to talk about so frantically? My first idea for my own science fiction story. The best idea ever for a story.

    Yes, really.

    (more…)

  • Take My Hand — We’re Going Elsewhere

    A Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard c.1776

    It would be easy for me to tell you that I write because I have to — that it’s in my blood and my heart, and I can’t help myself. That wouldn’t be true, exactly. I make up stories because I don’t know how not to. When I was a little girl, I told myself stories to fall asleep, and today I make up outrageous scenarios for people I see walking their dogs or sitting across a crowded restaurant.

    But I don’t write those down. Making stuff up is not writing.

    I would love to tell you I write for the money, but it’s too soon for that. Ask me again in a few years. Still, even if I were rich, it wouldn’t be why I started writing. Anybody who starts writing because they think it’s a good way to get rich quick is facing a huge letdown. That’s not it either.

    I write because I read. (more…)

  • I Write So My Head Doesn’t Explode

    The simple answer is that I write because I have to. I have too many thoughts in my head, so I have to frequently siphon them off by writing. If I didn’t, my head would fill to the bursting point, and probably explode.

    I write because I have this compulsion to remember everything. My memory has lots of holes, so if I don’t write something down, I forget it.

    I write because there are so many stories inside of me: characters and worlds and great adventures I want to explore.

    (more…)

  • I Have Seen Wonders Untold

    Comet Hale-Bopp
    Comet Hale-Bopp as it appeared over Boulder, Colorado in 1997. Image borrowed from here.

    When I was about six or seven years old, I was obsessed with space. I wanted to be an astronaut and travel out of the Earth’s atmosphere to go to the Moon, to Mars, to Jupiter, or beyond. I wanted to go “out there,” where no one else had been. Because it would mean seeing wonders untold.

    But for a boy born with brittle bones, the reality of traveling on a rocket would mean being crushed by G-forces my body couldn’t bear. Becoming an astronaut would never be in the cards for me.

    I could never go to space. I would never see a Martian sunset or watch as Jupiter filled the sky from Titan. I would never travel to the stars.

    (more…)

  • We Are Finite; Sometimes Words Are Not

    I’ve thought a lot about this: why we write. Lord knows, there are easier ways to spend your day.

    One of the dirty truths about writing is that it’s a hell of a lot of work. No matter what offerings I make (and there have been many), the words refuse to write themselves. They are selfish and lazy little bastards.

    To be entirely honest, there are plenty of times I want to walk away and do almost anything other than write, but for some reason, I don’t. And a lot of my writer friends don’t either. Time after time, we find ourselves drawn back to the desk or the laptop or the pen and paper so we can hash out the things that are banging around inside our head.

    Now you might be saying to yourself, “Wow, Larry. That sounds like a stubborn group of people who really have a thing for emotional agony.” I wouldn’t disagree with you. But I also admit that I proudly count myself among their numbers, and I think the answer to why we keep at this writing thing goes deeper than our being a collection of people whose particular kink is self-induced frustration.

    (more…)

  • Sharks Have to Swim; Writers Have to Write

    From Wikipedia

    During elementary school, I drew comic books in class. My first character was Outback Jack, a whip-toting bad-ass inspired by Crocodile Dundee and Indiana Jones. By the time I reached high school, I spent a lot of time writing and drawing comics. I came up with the brand name Power Comics when I was in sixth grade, and made business cards on printer paper. I even had a logo.

    With the exception of Outback Jack and a couple of other characters, I didn’t have interest in continuing their adventures. I loved coming up with characters and writing their origin stories. I’ve always loved a good comic book origin story, even to this day. All told, I invented around fifty title characters. Many of them shared powers with published super heroes, but that has never stopped DC or Marvel from ripping each other off.

    Looking, back, that is how I began writing. I felt a rush and kept seeking it. I used to think I started writing in college. I wrote a scene for video production my sophomore year and attended a screenwriter’s boot camp as a junior. But when I really look at my life, writing has always been there. (more…)

  • The Why of Writing (Week Ending July 28)

    Some do it for pleasure. Others do it to make a living. I’ve heard tell that some do it alone, in the dark. There are those who are tortured by it, but do it anyway. The “it” we’re referring to, of course, is writing.

    Why do we write? Are we sharks? Are we storytellers? Are we desperate to be remembered? Maybe there’s some primal instinct at work. Or maybe the answer is simply “because.” We asked our writers why, and — not surprisingly — we received a lot of different responses. (I swear, I’ll buy everyone a round if we actually all agree on something.)

    So come on in from the summer heat. Pull up a stool beneath the ceiling fan. Have an ice-cold drink. Sit back and talk with our writers. We hope you enjoy the discussion.

    Until next week,

    The Cafe Management

  • Which author is your writing style most like? Is he/sheyour favorite?

    Writers tend to read a lot, and we can’t help but internalize that. As we write and develop our voices, a lot of times we borrow the voices of our favorite authors. Even when our own voice is fully formed, it can sometimes still hold the echo of the writing styles of the authors who have influenced us. Check out who the Confabulators think they sound like – and if it’s an author you like, then you know which Confabulator’s writing career to follow (although we do hope you’ll follow all of us)!

    Christie Holland

    There’s a website where you can enter excerpts of your work and it’ll compare it to published authors.  I was once told one of my excerpts sounded like Stephanie Meyer so I immediately screamed, deleted the entire thing, and rewrote it.  I haven’t gotten the same response since!  The site also likes to give me a different response every time I try it, (and I am so sorry I don’t remember what site it is) so I have no idea who my style is most like.  Hopefully it’s somewhere between John Green and Maggie Stiefvater, since they’re my favorite authors.

    Jason Arnett

    Huh. I haven’t really thought about this. With this current work, I’m probably a lot like Lev (The Magicians) Grossman. At least, as far as the construction of the story and some of the pacing go. He’s up among my top five writers, but he’s not the pinnacle of my favorites. That honor goes to Heinlien, who I emulated a lot early on when I started writing. That’s the sincerest form of flattery, isn’t it?

    Sara Lundberg

    I’ve worked hard over the years to develop my own style and voice in my writing, but just recently I re-read a book that used to be one my favorites from one of my all-time favorite authors, and I noticed how much my writing style is like his without even realizing it or trying. The author I speak of is Clive Barker. I have also been told that my writing is very Terry Brooks-ish, as well, which isn’t too surprising, as he has been another one of my favorites over the years.

    Jack Campbell, Jr.

    Style-wise, John Gardner (Grendel, not James Bond). Our content is different, but re-reading Grendel a short while ago, I realized that a lot of the techniques I use are similar to Gardner’s. We both use alliteration and variations on sentence patterns for effect. I have a love-hate relationship with Gardner. I have nearly all of his books, both fiction and writing instruction. I love his work. I admire his ability and vast knowledge of literary theory, but he can come off as a literary elitist, sometimes, and I wouldn’t necessarily call him my favorite writer.

    Paul Swearingen

    I’m not sure that I could say that my style is close to hers, but I do know that my choice of settings and their use in my novels is similar to those of Cynthia Voigt’s. She used the verdant Maryland Potomac shore area extensively in her Tillerman saga novels, almost as a character, and I tend to do the same in my works nominally set in SE Kansas. I’m amazed at how often authors forget that people do not live in a vacuum and neglect to include at least bits and pieces of setting, including weather, in their stories. Western writers almost always make sure that the reader can feel the dry air, the heat, sleet needling bare skin, whatever, in their novels. Urban writers are stuck with tall buildings, sticky asphalt, and trash. Who wants to read about that stuff?

    Ashely M. Poland

    Honestly, I have the bad habit of absorbing concepts/style like a sponge — so I’m wary of reading & writing at the same time. I was writing a fantasy story last month, with a slight false utopia flavor; I realized my recent read of The Hunger Games had influenced my characters and setting. Thankfully, it was a light influence, not, “Holy crap, you’re writing fan fiction again.” I know my sci-fi is heavily influence by Bujold (which I think I’ve mentioned before) and yes~ I love her writing and world-building. I’d like to be half as creative one day.