Endings

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Sometimes the hardest part of writing a story is where and how to end it. Unless you’re doing something really risky and experimental, most readers want an ending that is satisfying, something that ties up the loose ends and fits both the tone and the theme of the story. If most of the book has been light and happy, then ending with something grim or terrible will feel jarring and out of place. On the contrary, if you’ve been writing something that is heavy and realistic, then ending with a fairy-tale-like happily-ever-after will likewise feel out of place and perhaps even cheapen the sacrifices and suffering of the characters.

Which brings me to Animorphs.

Back in July 2020, I wrote an entry on the Animorphs book series by K.A. Applegate for my Obscure Books From Childhood blog series on Second Unit Reviews. This prompted me to reread the entire series, which consists of 62 volumes (54 regular books, four Megamorphs books, the Andalite, Hork-Bajir, and Ellimist Chronicles, and Visser, plus two “choose your own adventure” books called Altermorphs, but I don’t count those because they don’t contribute to the main story). I just finished the final book very early this morning and… I have some feelings.

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Falling Down, Reaching Up

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Autumn is here, a time of year that I’ve grown increasingly fond of, despite my aversion to the cold. I enjoy the colors more, the justification to wear heavy sweaters and buy cold-weather items like blankets, mugs, tea, hot chocolate, candles, and fuzzy socks. We’re also only two weeks away from National Novel Writing Month, which I’ve been part of for the last ten years (although I’ve technically only participated nine times. I did the Camp NaNoWriMos for 2013, but skipped the November NaNo for some reason I no longer remember.)

Due to my lack of focus, I don’t think I’ll be able to work on anything too heavy or serious this November. So I’ve decided to work on a lighter, more fun and childish book that’s been kicking around in my brain for a long time: DragonFriend. This is one of the stories that I used to play out parts of with my toys, so there’s a bit of absurdity to it, but also a lot of exploratory wonder, which is something I need right now. Not that there isn’t dark stuff that happens in this story (because there is) but the overall feel is more like going on an adventure than a dramatic epic. Here’s the description:

A Fairy Tale for Grownups (Or Anyone Else Who Likes To Sneak Into the “Adult” Section of the Library and Read Whatever Interests You)

This is the story of Hagan, an innkeeper’s son with a talent for languages and an interest in magical fauna. After an encounter with dragons, he decides to become a wizard and study these fantastic beasts. His travels garner him many friends, some foes, at least one reluctant ally, and a motley collection of tales from the beings he encounters.

I swear, I came up with this idea long before Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was a thing. I might have read the first Harry Potter book at the time, and both the name of the main character and the look of the toy he’s based on bear some superficial similarities to Hagrid. But aside from their looks and a love of magical creatures, they are very different people. At least, I think so. DragonFriend will allow me to meander among all kinds of different characters and their stories, weaving them all together, so it should be a fun book to write. (And I desperately need something fun right now.)

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Trust the Art and Other Foibles

Whoops, looks like I haven’t posted here in a month. Guess my motivation is still pretty low, not to mention not having much to really talk about in September. But October is here, and now I have a little smorgasbord of topics to touch on:

INKTOBER

I’ve been participating in Inktober, which is a month-long challenge to draw a picture using ink each day. They offer a list of prompts, which I have been following so I don’t get artist block. If you’re interested, I’m posting my daily efforts on my DeviantART page and on Twitter. But there’s something I’ve learned after drawing for only a few days:

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Post-Labor Day Update

This was supposed to be written and posted yesterday on Labor Day, but… that would have involved labor, so I didn’t.

I jest. In truth, I’ve had real trouble focusing lately, and this weekend in particular, so I spent my time taking walks, eating apple pie, and playing more Okami HD. I did get a little further along in editing/polishing Okami Amaterasu as well.

But I do have a small piece of news. I submitted a short story for possible publication for the first time in almost five years. Originally I was going to write an entirely new story, “The Undead Midwife,” but my lack of focus would have made it a half-baked effort, since the deadline for submissions is tomorrow, September 9th. I’m not willing to send in a story in such a state. So instead I revised and fleshed out my flash fiction story “The Distal King” from my stint with Story-A-Day in May in 2019. It turned out pretty well and I hope the folks at Uncanny Magazine like it. I’ll find out in 2-4 weeks.

Also, I’m finally in a good enough financial position to actually help support some folk on Patreon. So I decided to support my favorite podcast, “Let’s Know Things” by Colin Wright (which I’ve been listening to since it aired in 2016) and “Synthetic Worlds” of J. Michael Straczynski who created my favorite sci-fi TV show Babylon 5 (and also has an amazing autobiography out called Becoming Superman which I highly recommend.)

I’ll try to post something with more substance next time. ^_^

Book Balls, Fan Fiction, & Other Endeavors

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Today is the last day of my vacation. Yes, I took a vacation because the low-level but persistent stress of 2020 gets tough to deal with, and fortunately, I’m in a position to actually have and use some of that accrued time.

I kicked off my vacation with the #FCPLBookBall, a virtual library fundraiser where you make a monetary donation to the library to “attend” and then just sit and read all day. It was, in a word, glorious. I highly recommend curling up someplace quiet and comfy with one of those “10 hours of ocean waves” tracks from YouTube running in the background. Since I can’t go to the beach this year, this was the closest equivalent, and it actually worked very well:

Books, pillows, tea, candle, cat, soothing ocean waves in the background… Time to settle in for the #FCPLBookBall! ^_^ #bookworm #amreading #ILikeToParty #AndByPartyIMeanReadBooks (2020-08-15 @kvclements)

I’m going to have to try to do something like this once a month or something, a dedicated “Read & Relaxation” day. It worked wonders to help calm and recenter myself. (Also, Saturday August 22nd was the Ray Bradbury Centennial, and there’s a Read-a-Thon of Fahrenheit 451 available to stream until September 5th if you want to check it out!)

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Should The Cat’s Cradle Continue?

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I wish good habits were as easy to form as bad habits. I’m really good at the latter, but terrible at the former. I didn’t write any Cat’s Cradle entries for a month, and I managed to miss the day that I was supposed to start writing them again (yesterday).

I am seriously wondering if I should even bother.

The Cat’s Cradle has been running for over nine years. June 2021 will mark the 10th anniversary. Since I like nice, round numbers, I want to keep writing entries at least until then. But I’ve been struggling for ideas and content. I feel like everything that can be said about writing, any topic I might try to tackle, has already been covered by people who are far more influential and articulate than myself. I don’t feel like I have anything new to add to the conversation. I avoid a lot of controversial topics in fiction because A) many I don’t have strong enough opinions on, B) I don’t have to knowledge to give an informed opinion, C) I don’t want to write about touchy subjects for clicks, and D) I just don’t want the hassle. And since I haven’t worked on my own novels in… well, longer than I care to think about, there isn’t anything to report on those fronts.

And does anyone really care anyway?

After nine years, this blog has little to no engagement on it. A few likes here and there, but almost no comments, shares, or anything else to show reader interest. I can’t tell if anyone is actually reading or getting anything out of it or if, like so many others, I’m just shouting into the void of the internet. The people who know me are understandably busy with their own lives and have little to no time to read these ramblings of mine. And the people who don’t know me have no real reason to care what I’m writing about.

The purpose of The Cat’s Cradle was to be a author platform, a home base to showcase my writing, my reliability, and to host things about my work once I got published. But the more I learn about the publishing process, the more daunting it becomes and the more discouraged I feel. Do I really want to go through the hassle of finding and convincing an agent to take me on and get my work published? If all I want is a physical book of my work, I could go to a private book printer or self publisher and get one made for me. The chances of making a living as a writer are slim to none, and I don’t know if I have the passion and drive to push through all of those obstacles. I don’t know if the stress is worth it with such fierce competition and in such a dismal economy.

And yet at the same time, I also see some real drivel on the shelves, which makes me think, “If this piece of puerile pap made it through traditional publishing, why can’t I do the same?”

But I’m not sure why I’m writing anymore. It isn’t regular enough to be a habit, I make no money from it, and there is a severe dearth of joy in it. I don’t know if that’s just a result of the near-constant low level of stress dogging my heels, or if depression is rearing its ugly head again… or if I’m just being lazy because it’s easier to dream about being a writer than actually writing. Or maybe it’s just the chronic stress piling up. (I may be an introvert, but the restrictions of the pandemic are getting to me too.)

I’m sorry if this sounds discouraging. Believe me, I feel pretty discouraged myself. I’ve been calling myself a writer for years and a writer writes, don’t they? This is a huge part of my sense of self, my identity if you will. And I don’t have much to show for it. Aside from blog entries, I haven’t done much of that in a while. Maybe I just need to force myself back into a habit and that will get everything working properly again. I want to create things… I just don’t know if I want to go through the publishing process. The end result may not be worth the stress.

The good thing about writing is that there isn’t a time limit. It’s not like sports or dancing where you have a narrow window of physical and mental prime and once that’s passed, you’re pretty much done. Writing (and publishing) can be done at any age; there isn’t some “point of no return” where if you haven’t published by this time, you’ never will be. But I need to sit down and ask myself some hard questions:

Why am I writing?
What is the end goal or purpose and how would I know if I reached it (or didn’t)?
Should I keep pouring time and energy into a blog that no one reads?
How much effort should I dedicate to the publishing part of things at this point?
Do I even want to be published?
Do I even want to write?
Can I still be a writer if I barely write?
Is this just a temporary funk or a genuine shift in priorities?

In the meantime, if you do read this blog, please let me know that you do in the comments, what types of topics you prefer to read about, anything to give me an idea if it’s worth continuing this venture. I will keep going until June 2021, but then I will need to decide if The Cat’s Cradle should continue… or be retired.

Writing Alternative “Facts”

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My first and pretty much only experience with the “Choose Your Own Adventure” genre of books was, unfortunately, with Goosebumps. “Reader Beware, YOU Choose the Scare!” As someone who perceives stories in a very linear way and prefers to know “what really happened,” this type of book was an exercise in frustration. This was before I was exposed to role-playing games of any kind, although I am more acclimated to this style of story-telling in video games thanks to RPGs from Bioware and otome from Steamberry Studio.

But there still is part of me that gets very frustrated with multiple storylines or multiple routes, especially with books. I don’t do well with stories that tackle multiverses, alternate timelines, or transporter accidents. I want to know the proper order of events, the single “right way” to experience the story… and that just isn’t present in that style of writing. All of the “facts” are equally plausible. (Well, at least, they are if the game or book is good.)

So imagine my surprise when I found myself writing just this kind of story for my day job.

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Impact of the Episodic

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Self-contained, episodic storytelling has fallen by the wayside in a lot of cinematic media, particularly for live-action television shows. Now the emphasis is on long-form story-telling suitable for the new era of binge-watching. The technology allowing one to stream episodes on demand rather than planning out your week by the TV guide and waiting for reruns if, heaven forbid, you missed an episode, has changed the nature of the storytelling format. I don’t think that is a bad thing, especially since I love “novels for television.” I do love long-running arcs that explore repercussions of the choices that characters make, sometimes only showing the full effect seasons later.

But I think that sometimes the power of self-contained episodes gets ignored or brushed off as a relic solely related to the technology that distributed it. Just because a show is comprised of self-contained episodes does not necessarily compromise its impact. A collection of short stories linked by the same characters can be just as powerful as a single giant novel. In some cases, it can be even more effective, depending on the kind of stories you want to tell. This is something I’ve really come to understand and appreciate as my friend Fox and I spend our evenings watching Star Trek: The Next Generation through Netflix Parties.

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It’s Not The Same… Writing At Different Stages of Life

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I love it when people comment on posts because it leads me down new avenues of thought and discussion that I hadn’t considered before. When I shared my post entitled “When Canon & Commentary Collide” about the retroactive changes made to preexisting work by J.K. Rowling and George Lucas, my friend David Greenshell had this to say:

I think it’s important to consider that it’s not JUST about the visual effects. As writers, we know that you can’t write the same story at 20 that you can at 30. As you change, your sensibilities change… so 1997 George Lucas actually isn’t fully able to reproduce what 1977 George Lucas would have wanted. By modifying the movies, he inevitably makes them a product of 1997 — not just technologically, but creatively.

And David is absolutely right. The stories that you can and do tell change depending on your age. You shift focus as you gain experience. The stories you are drawn to or are interested in telling change. The characters you relate to and want to write about evolve. And whenever there is a large gap between installments of work, especially if they are in a series, you can usually tell the difference.

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When Canon & Commentary Collide: What Is “Part of the Story”?

This entry is part of the “Spoiled By Supplements” blog series.

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Some people care about this topic more than others. For myself, I prefer to know what is part of the story and what is mere speculation, fan fiction, or notes on things that didn’t go anywhere. My time is both finite and valuable, so I want to know what is necessary and what is supplemental. These kinds of things can be interesting to know about, like reading a movie script to learn what was originally intended, see how it was actually executed on screen, and understand why it was cut or redone. These kinds of “alternate realities” are intriguing from an academic point of view. And a lot of artistic creation involves a lot of people, so seeing how the final product differs or adheres to the original vision and why it changed or stayed the same is pretty neat.

But how “final” is that final product? In an age where it’s easier and easier to make changes, from releasing Special Editions with CGI edits, changing a character’s design due to fan outcry, or redoing the CGI of an entire movie after it was released in theaters, it becomes harder and harder to call something “finished.”

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