The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: art

  • Stories Are A Luxury

    My writer friends may take exception with this, but I don’t think the world needs stories.

    Stories are a luxury.

    This idea that stories (and any other form of art) are somehow a necessity is false. It’s a notion that we artistic types often perpetuate because we’re trying to assuage our own insecurity about the career path we want to pursue. It’s as if we still need to be convinced that being an artist is legit and worthwhile.

    Here’s the stone cold truth, people: Art is not a required staple. It is not food nor is it shelter. The world will continue to spin even without the stories we tell.

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  • Artistic Endeavors in Granite and Clothespins

    What I love about writing, especially prose, is that when it is done well, it can accomplish many things at once. You can share a story, paint a precise character, address an overall issue, and create a work of verbal art, all at once.

    I am in love with the writing process, with the act of putting words on paper and seeing what happens. I love the feeling inside my brain while I am writing. I feel my brain swell comfortably, as it might feel if I were drunk, slightly disconnected from the physical world around me.

    When it is going well, there are few better feelings on Earth. I have never come away from a writing session and thought, “That was a waste of my time. I never should have sat down.”

    It isn’t that I have always been happy with what I have written. Sometimes, even though I pride myself on having a certain literary artistic quality about my writing, I write total crap. The characters don’t work, the story is contrived, my themes don’t connect, and my prose plods along like a drunken elephant.

    But the feeling of writing, the release of endorphins and miscellaneous bodily chemicals produces a sense of euphoria. If nothing quality is produced, I still get that feeling. Granted, it is much better when it is all working, when my fingers are flying and I know what they are leaving carved in their wake is made of granite, instead of clothespins and Elmer’s school glue.

    I’ve always thought that to be one of my strengths as a writer. I have a decent sense of metaphor and am extremely interested in the sound and feel of my writing. My prose is at its best when it is a work of art, rather than just a work of fiction.

    There is nothing wrong with genre writing. My favorite writers are genre-oriented. I write some genre fiction myself. In fact, I believe “literary fiction” can be written in any genre. Literary fiction hasn’t learned enough from genre fiction, and vice versa. But I have always seen writing as an artistic endeavor, rather than a storytelling process.

    My favorite lines on the page are those that leave an aftertaste. When you read them, it is as if you have tasted the delicate creation of a master chef. The syllables roll off your tongue in a way so tasty that it accents the theme and content of the work itself. When it all works together, theme, tone, and content interweave, creating a tapestry stronger for every thread that runs through it.

    This might come off as word snobbery. I don’t mean it this way. I firmly believe in what Hemingway said. We are all just apprentices in a craft with no masters. My particular interest in writing is total absorption of the theory behind the craft. I love reading about story structures, spiraling narratives, psychological profiles of classical characters, theories of theme development.

    Will any of this make me a better writer? Who knows? But it can’t hurt, and I enjoy the study and practice of it immensely.

  • The Artist (Flash Fiction)

    So yeah, I’m working this fundraiser tonight at the museum. It’s in this room with ancient stone carvings from Egypt.  A bunch of rich people and artists from all over rubbing elbows. Used to come in here with my boys from time to time, that’s how I knew about it and now I work here, busing on nights like this, cleaning up during the day.

    It’s hard to get away from things, you know, like in Egypt, back when, where these old carvings were made: you were born to it, died in it. Pretty much like here, really. It’s all a bunch of shit. ‘Bootstraps’? Please. But I do some art, some things, you know. I get things out of the trash and try to make them into other things. There’s not a lot of room for anything at our place, so it’s all real real small. I look up at this stone wall, the hieroglyphics, I read they’re called, and the guys with the skirts and long hair. No faces though. That’s weird. Spooky. They say people that didn’t like this tribe back then hacked the faces off with something, ancient hammers I guess. Anyway, one of my pieces is small enough to fit inside one of those little carved spaces with the hieroglyphics. I’d like to try something big though, just don’t have any room for it. And anyways, who’s got time for all that, you know?

    I see the ice is about out, so I excuse myself to get behind the bar to refill the tub. I take away the bucket of empty bottles and ask do they need anything restocked. I’m thirsty myself, and that liquor looks good, but I try not to drink anymore. It just takes too much time away from other things. The real thing is though, the real reason is, I try not to because I have a problem with it. I like it too much and I’m trying really hard to stay clean. It’s hard though. Everyone I know pretty much has something they doing to take the edge off. Or make money. Or both. And it’s weird that I don’t, you know? When the story for most is that their brother on crack and/or dealing. They don’t trust me. They don’t want to act like that but I can see they don’t. So, I don’t fit in. It’s hard, like I said. I don’t really have any friends, and my family is pretty fucked up, whatever. So, when I’m not working I spend a lot of time walking, finding things to make art with. I keep out of the way of almost everyone. And pretty soon, you’re invisible, no face, like those boys up on the wall here.

    I bring the ice back and fill the tub. As I go, I pull one of my little art pieces out of my pocket and set it up on the bar, quick so no one will notice. I’m supposed to stay out of sight as much as possible. But I do that. I set my things up in little spots around the museum. I could get in big trouble for it, but I do it anyway. I see that one of the guests at the bar is looking at it, and my heart speeds up. I wonder if he saw me put it there and I’m going to get in trouble. Part of me doesn’t care, but the other side needs the money. And I like working here. I like being with the art. The guy is talking to the bartender and the bartender’s looking around to see who might have put it there, shrugging his shoulders. I look up at the wall, the stone carvings old as hell, and I think about the all the times I wanted to touch them, but I never did because the guards and people get upset when you do that. I close my eyes and feel my heart in my chest and my palms sweaty on the plastic edge of the bus tub. I open my eyes. The guy is still there holding my piece, smiling. I set down the tub. And I walk up and put out my hand.

    Later, I walk home, down the streets, the stores all shut, metal doors over the windows. People on the corners, waiting for something. I see one of my friends from when we were kids, but I don’t make eye contact, and he wouldn’t talk to me now anyway. I slip into our place, three stories up from the street. The TV is on, my mom asleep on the couch, no one else is here. I go into my room and sit on my bed, set my share of the tips on the window sill. The money won’t stay folded. It was a good night. I pull out the business card from my other pocket and turn it over and over in my hands, trace the raised phone number with my finger. I close my eyes. I think about taking that money, going back down stairs, hooking up with my old friends. I open my eyes and see the shelves I made, my art on it. I think about those boys with the hammers, right before they smashed those faces. How the grip felt in their hands before they raised them up, what they were thinking. I lay the card on top of the money, lie back and look at the ceiling. It takes a long time to fall asleep.

     

  • All That Surrounds Me

    All sorts of things have triggered something in my head and gotten the idea rolling, then the idea takes hold and I go along and start working it out as I mentioned here. But what kinds of things trigger that moment of inspiration? I’m glad you asked because I was going to if you didn’t. Wait a second…

    Tune in next week for more X! Minus! One!

    Anyway, I’m a huge fan of Old Time Radio. Especially the fantasy/horror shows like The Shadow, Lights Out, Suspense, Inner Sanctum and the list goes on and on. Science fiction shows like X-Minus One are in regular rotation on the iPod. You can find tons of these shows on the Internet Archive site. But the reason these things affect me so much is that they’re so earnest, so in the moment and flying by the seat of their pants and on a tight schedule. In the case of X-Minus One the stories were direct adaptations of now-classic SF from the pulps that were on the newsstand that month.

    While I’m on the subject, I’m also a big fan of The Bob Edwards Show on satellite radio. I’ve got more ideas written down from listening to that show on a daily basis than almost any other interview-type program I’ve heard or watched. I keep a spiral bound notebook with me during the day and that’s what snatches of ideas and phrases go into. There are probably six or seven novels worth of ideas in there.

    Depeche Mode made an exceptional music video for the single Wrong. It’s a couple of years old now, but it’s a beautiful short story told inside a three and a half-minute song. Go watch it, I’ll wait.

    Now tell me you don’t wonder how that guy ended up in the car. Who did he piss off that badly that he ended up like that? I like to think that the video was a nod to the 2008 film The Dark Knight because this seems like the kind of thing the Joker might do. The other music video that really affected me was Mike + the Mechanics’ Silent Running. Remember it was the 80s and videos were being used rather heavily to promote films. Among my friends we kept wondering what the movie was that the song had come from. It wasn’t any kind of promo, though, it was just taking the art form of the storytelling video in a new direction that would culminate in the DM video 20+ years later.

    Gatewood's Olan Sun

    Visual art has a real effect on me, too. I’m a huge fan of anything that combines words and pictures like comics, even Facebook memes and some abstract paintings from artists like William Gatewood. But then the fantasy paintings of Roger Dean and Frank Frazetta have inspired me to write stories to include the settings or scenes these fine commercial artists had in their heads and translated to canvas in vivid color. Even Russian propaganda posters (here’s a great gallery you can buy from if you like) can bring to mind a story possibility.

    I’ve been to local productions of stage plays that have caused me to start thinking. One in particular, Picasso at the Lapin Agile featuring Einstein (him again!) and Picasso on the very edge of possibly their greatest achievements. How could one not come out of that play inspired to explore the thoughts and ideas that are planted there? Same with Angels in America and so many other plays that are packed with capital ‘I’ Ideas.

    A writer is open to all forms of input, to everything that can spark an idea that will rub up against a thought and become Something Else. The only thing that holds one back from being a capital ‘W’ Writer is not being open to the things that will take him to the stories inside.

  • You Influence Me, You Really Influence Me

    Everything I see, everything I do, eat, touch, and hear influences my writing in some way.

    Television gives me an idea of what works and what doesn’t in character reactions and motivations. Sometimes If I can figure out within the first five minutes of a show who the murderer is, maybe something went wrong in the telling. Sometimes it’s more about recognizing patterns in a particular show. The same writers, the same characters, the same circumstances—in some shows that pattern gives away the murderer to someone who’s spent several seasons analyzing each episode. It doesn’t mean it’s a mistake, necessarily. But it is something for a writer to take away to either use or avoid in her own work.

    Movies, like TV, are for learning what works and doesn’t work. In this longer form, I can learn about the effective (and ineffective) use of tension and how it rises and falls to carry the story forward. I believe you can learn as much, if not more, from a bad movie as you can a good one.

    Food has to come into play, too. In my series, I have a closet monster who’s a gourmet chef. I am not a gourmet chef. This means I have to pay attention when we go out for a really good meal. A special New Year’s Eve menu we had at a local restaurant two years ago made its way into book two. The scene required a very fancy menu, and I still had the menu from New Year’s. I ate that meal myself. It was phenomenal. So I reused it on a dinner-cruise scene.

    Music is not so much about learning for me as it is about mood.

    I don’t think there’s a quicker way to influence a person’s mood than with music. Songs tend to be short, maybe three minutes long, and yet in the space of that time I can have all my worries lifted off my shoulders or be reduced to tears. It’s a kind of magic all on its own. When I write, I only play music without lyrics, since I need my own words to go on the page. But mood is everything. When I’m writing about Zoey, I often to listen to the Final Fantasy station on iTunes radio. When I write my djinn stories, I listen to music that sounds more like it’s for belly dancing.

    Art is for inspiration more than any other medium. I can stand in front of a painting of a woman in a chair for a half hour, wondering about her life, whether she was happy, if she had any pets or children or bad habits. After a day spent at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, my fingers itch. My eyes are unfocused and my thoughts are far away. All those paintings and sculptures swirl around in my head and form characters and scenes in faraway places.

    For a writer, everything is influential. It’s all or nothing. If we closed ourselves off from our surroundings, we wouldn’t have anything to write about.

  • Input/Output

    Just as writers get ideas from all around us, we also are influenced by everything we come into contact with. I dedicated a portion of my own personal blog entries to this phenomenon, which I affectionately call the Input/Output modes. Anything we take in inevitably affects what comes out.

    As a writer, I talk a lot about other writers and books that influence me, but sometimes I forget how much the other categories of art inspire me, as well.

    Music is a powerful one. When I listen to instrumental music, new worlds unfold inside my mind, and I envision scenes to fit with that music. When I was a kid, I used to lie in bed listening to my favorite movie soundtracks and make up new stories to go with them. Hell, I still do that sometimes. For some novels, I’ll create a Pandora station based around certain songs or bands for a certain mood. For others, I will pick one specific instrumental movie soundtrack and listen to it over and over, which shapes my story quite a bit, inspiring scenes I wouldn’t have otherwise fathomed.

    Visual arts – paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs – also trigger stories in me. I have always struggled with setting and description. I have a vague idea of what a person or place looks like, but the details are usually missing in my writing. Visual representations help me really consider the details.  Sometimes a picture will really speak to me and I’ll be driven to write a story that fits the scene. I’ll want to tell the story of how that domed city on the cliff came to be, or why the sky has inexplicable green miasma in it, or where that dragon got all of those books. Then characters will start to wander around inside the images to answer all of these questions for me.

    The arts aren’t the only other medium that influence my writing, however.

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  • Other People’s Muses

    “Art is either plagiarism or revolution.” – Paul Gauguin

    Art is a dangerous thing.  It is a key that can open many doorways.  However, you don’t know what will be on the other side until you have already crossed the threshold.  For an artist, art unlocks perceptions and inspiration you might not have otherwise found.

    I have always been a fan of using art as inspiration for my own art, especially writing.  Writing is about perspectives, about being able to shift between your perspective and the perspective of sometimes imaginary people who are nothing like you.  Allowing another artist’s work to move you can be a good shortcut.

    Art is always an expression of self.  By letting others express themselves, you can get out of your own way.  I’ve found inspiration and writing material in the art of many other mediums.

    I’ve never been one to wait around for ideas.  There aren’t little inspiration fairies floating around my head offering to sprinkle me with creativity dust, at least not that I have seen.

    If I need an idea, I go looking for it.  I’ve mentioned finding inspiration in lines of poetry in a past blog.  But I have also found inspiration from works of art in other mediums.  My novel, Kill Creek Road, began as an idea taken from the song lyrics for “Water’s Edge” by the alternative band Seven Mary Three.  The concept grew away from that initial idea, leaving it behind, but the lyrics got me through the initial planning.

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  • Other Media Influences (Week of 27 February 2012)

    We’ve talked about our writing influences and heroes quite a bit here at the cafe. We do that because they’re important to us, they shape us and how we write. Being a confabulator of any kind means being the sum total of everything that one has read, watched, heard, touched and tasted. Have you read a passage about a meal that made you want to go out to eat? Are there songs that make you happy or sad for no apparent reason? Movies that make anxious to go home and write something?

    The team here this week is talking about the other media that inspires us or fires our imagination. When you take your seat at the Cafe this week and get that mocha in front of you, savor the heat of the milk, the aroma of the espresso, the sweetness of the chocolate on your tongue. We’ll tell you everything you’d ever want to know (and probably a little more) about how those things fit into our stories.