Dark Age Fiction: Jeff Blackmer's Blog

I am reminded that I have not done a blogpost in awhile. What to write about? Perhaps my most recent adventure (tonight) into a most hated realm. I have decided that the opposite of writing is plumbing. Please allow me to elaborate.
Writing is the free flow of ideas, the expression of imagination. Plumbing is stagnant water, standing in the sink, ever so slowly trickling down the drain.
Writing is putting words on paper, studying them, tweaking them, moving them about until they sing! Plumbing is about looking under the sink, at the plethora of pipes and fittings, and knowing, that if you disturb them in any way whatsoever, they will never again function properly.
Writing is a trip down the rabbit hole to new worlds, new adventures. Plumbing is pulling out that horrid tool called the “snake”, uncoiling it and forcing it to writhe through the muck until way is clear. I hate snakes!
Writing is sitting at your computer, artfully arranging words, smiling at your efforts. Plumbing is four trips to the hardware store and getting the wrong things, watching the clerk smirk when you keep coming back.
Writing is finishing that last line, reading it over, sighing in quiet contemplation with a lump in your throat because you got it just right. Plumbing is tightening that last fitting, turning the water back on, and it spite of your best efforts, watching dumbfounded as multiple leaks appear.
Writing is pushing yourself away from the keyboard, satisfied that you have accomplished what you have set out to do. Plumbing is sitting on the floor,  hours past sunset, pounding on the drain with a pipe wrench, laughing maniacally, cursing the very existence of those systems designed to transport water. A modern convenience…Hah!

If you are a writer, perhaps someday you may be interviewed by a person who fancies themselves to be clever.  Perhaps they will ask you an abstract question just to see how you will answer. If they should inquire of you “What would you imagine to be the opposite of writing?” You may answer without hesitation – “Plumbing. Plumbing is the opposite of writing.”

In the nineteenth century, telegraph lines were painstakingly strung across the United States and in 1861 a link was completed from east to west, enabling instant communication between individuals across the country. It was an amazing achievement, bringing an end to the Pony Express. Of course, most people didn’t have personal access to telegraph, and few knew Morse Code, and so people still wrote and mailed letters.

In the first half of the twentieth century, telephone use exploded. Now people could communicate with loved ones, thousands of miles away, actually hearing their voices and carry on a normal conversation! In the early 1980’s, a new breakthrough occured – cell phones! Want to see what the early ones looked like? Go rent the first “Lethal Weapon” movie. You’ll see Danny Glover sitting outside, ranting to his superior at the Police station. He’s complaining about what a hot headed crazy Mel Gibson is. Apparently Danny knew this before the rest of us, but I digress. Danny’s character (Murtagh) was talking on a state of the art cell phone! It had an old fashioned hand held receiver, attached by a cord to a box that was the size of one of our present day desktop printers. But at the time, it was way cool!

Cell phones have come a long way since then. They have surpassed even the style of the handheld flip communicators that Captain Kirk had on the old Star Trek show. “Captain, need to dispatch some Romulans? There’s an app for that, here’s an Iphone!”

And then of course, email. No one mails letters anymore, we send emails, by the thousands. For crying out loud, we take pictures, with our phones, and email them to our friends, from thousands of miles away! Think about that…it is amazing.

But somewhere, on this slippery slope of communication, I fear we have lost our way. Often, the means of communication that is more precise, is set aside in favor of other means, more cool or convenient. Yesterday, I sent an email to my boss. She’s a bright lady, and I figure that I’m not bad at communicating. But, she misunderstood my email. I sent another, to clarify. She misunderstood, and was now alarmed. What to do? Was she in an office across the country, or across town? No, she was 200 feet away. I could have called her on the phone, but I made the bold decision to walk down to her office and talk to her. Problem solved in 30 seconds.

I realize that sometimes we text nearby people because we need discretion, but I sometime see family members sitting in my living room, with no one else around, texting each other. Think about that. You could open your mouth and speak, but instead, you type words on to your phone screen, and hit send. Your phone sends your message to a satellite in space. The message is then sent back down, to the person sitting ten feet away from you. Absurd, ludicrous. Is it really still that cool, that much of a novelty? If I want to talk to my eighteen year old, I have to text him, he won’t answer his phone.
I recently saw a cartoon, a picture of a child sitting on his mother’s lap. They were looking at a message on her cell phone: “How R U 2 day?” He was struggling to read it. Her response – “Sound it out, honey.”

We’re loosing clarity for convenience. And now, we’ve taken yet another step in that direction. Now, we tweet: one hundred and forty character snippets. For the sake of survival as a writer, I know I have to embrace this. But it annoys me. Perhaps it’s making us more succinct, I would like to hope so. But at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I dare to ask, what comes after Twitter? Will we be sending a series of emoticons? Think about that one. Sounds a little bit like hieroglyphics to me. And that doesn’t seem like the future of communications.

Good writing takes work. Great writing takes sweat. Hi Def writing requires blood, sweat and tears.
In that great old Rolling Stones song – ‘It’s only Rock and Roll’, Mick sings:
If I could dig down deep in my heart
Feelings would flood on the page
Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya
Would ya think the boy’s insane?

The lyrics tell the lyricist’s dilemma. To satisfy the ear of the listener, it has to be ever new, always fresh, the same idea said in a new relevant way. It’s the same for a writer telling a story. There are only a limited number of themes. How are you going to tell your story in a way that grabs the reader? It’s got to be high definition. Now, that isn’t a regular writing term, I just made it up. But it seems to define the issue. A few years ago I was perfectly happy with my nice color TV. But when the prices started coming down on HD TV, well, it was time to get one. And once you’ve had that, how can you possibly go back? Everything is vivid, real. You see individual hairs, freckles, drops of sweat…you are there, right next to that person on the screen.

Writing can be like that. When a writer hits that level, oh, it’s pretty. But it’s not easy. I was struggling with a chapter a couple of days ago. I read a post on my friend Janie Bill’s blog, http://feelingfiction.com and it inspired me to go back and give it another go: Open with feelings. I spent two hours on the first paragraph, stop, start, spin my wheels…over and over again. In the blogpost it said that you didn’t even need to describe what your character looks like at first. I didn’t agree, but I followed the advice. It worked. If you are in the character’s head, you wouldn’t think of describing yourself. Save that for later. it usually doesn’t matter during that first impression. Open with feelings, AND show, not tell, (that other mantra we hear repeated over and over). And then, somehow, it all came together. So, what was the result?

The main character came alive; his thoughts, feelings, frustrations, his world seen through his eyes, hints of the prologue, foreshadowing of the story arc, his perceptions, taken in not just through his eyes, but through sound and touch and smell.
I was digging down deep in my heart, and feelings were flooding on to the page.

I was there, in northern England in 394 AD, standing on the southern battlements of the castle at dawn, deep in self-doubt, pondering sedition against a foreign empire. For just a moment, I was the king.
I finally wrapped up the scene.  My first thought – wow, what did I just do? For a little while, I had truly gotten inside this character’s head; smelled the sea breeze in my face, felt the rough stonework, saw the morning rays of the sun grazing the tops of the trees, heard the flag snapping in the wind.

My second thought – this is way too long, I can’t have this scene be four pages. Then I looked back. Much to my amazement I found it to be only one and a half pages long. Then I marveled at how much I had put into such a short space.

Sometimes you do need narrative exposition. That’s what my original version of this scene was. I kept “show” in mind, and it helped. But by bringing in a pivotal character I was able to relate the same information, and more, through his thoughts and senses. 
Open with feelings, and
Show, not tell
Dig deep, really feel the emotion. If you get it right, you’ll surprise yourself. It’ll be some of your best stuff. It will be Hi-Def writing.

Today…I am thinking about Trinity. No, not the religious concept; not even my niece named Trinity – Trinity from The Matrix. Remember the first time you saw that movie? She’s hacking a computer. The police are moving in. Agent Smith is talking to the officer in charge, chastising the lieutenant for not alerting him.
Lieutenant: I think we can handle one little girl. I sent in two units, they’re bringing her in now.
Agent Smith: No Lieutenant, your men are already dead.

A minute later we see the men take on Trinity. With ruthless choreographed precision she dispatches all the officers, hardly breaking a sweat. This woman is unbelievable. But then, agents arrive. She’s out of her league, running for her life, racing across rooftops, jumping from one building to another, finally flying through a small window, tumbling down a flight of stairs, showered by glass. She ends up at the bottom, wild eyed, guns at the ready. After a few heart stopping moments, convinced she has survived, she fiercely utters: “Get up, Trinity, get UP.”

A few days ago I sent two chapters,  what I hoped was the last set of edits on those chapters,  to my agent. Last night she got back to me. Eagerly opening the email I read, “While much of this is fine, and there are some spots of real beauty, you still need to fix this, and this, and this…
Dismayed at first, I was defensive. After calming down, I had to concede she was right. I took the advice to heart, sent back a contrite email and thanked her. She responded this morning, telling me not to worry, keep at it.

Sometimes we think we are just about there. We nail the double axel. “Nice,” says the coach, “but a lot of people can do a double. Show me a triple.”
You just ran a four minute mile? Well done, but that record was broken 56 years ago. What else you got?

It takes just a little more effort to get to the next level. Good isn’t good enough. I know, its tough to hear. But have you really given it everything you’ve got? Have you stretched your talent to the limit? Don’t be the swimmer who swam three fourths of the way across the English Channel, decided they couldn’t make it and swam home. We all get knocked down. You just did…again. If not yesterday, or today, perhaps tomorrow. It will happen again.  Maybe it feels like you crashed through a window and tumbled down a flight of stairs. You’re at the bottom, in a heap, on your back, hurting. But you’re still in the game. It’s not the end, just a momentary setback. Don’t stay there. Get your bearings and try again.

Get up (insert your name here). Get UP!