Last week I wrote about what it means to blog. I’ve actually received some good feedback from that. Though, I think the entry is not totally complete. In that spirit, I add to the dialogue…

Specifically, when going about the internet and reading people’s blogs, there is often a sub-text to the variety of blogs that exist in the greater interwebbythingamajig. These blogs actually interconnect. Not literally, not directly; not in the sense that you can look to the left of my blog and see links to other websites, but rather, in the sense that there is a level of communication that exists between various authors of blogs.

That may not be clear.

Let’s look at books. You may not see it, but there is a dialogue that goes on between authors. This dialogue is what gives people the various genres in publishing. You get general fiction because a lot of people are writing in a very general way… these are, frequently, the books that do not have specific genre defining characteristics.

So, fantasy as a genre. This starts, really, with J.R.R. Tolkein and his Lord of the Rings series of books (to include The Hobbit). This is, effectively, the first fantasy novel, though there are others that also qualify in this genre from the same era; and caused people to look at the genre and write about it.

Writing a fantasy novel, in effect, is a response to Tolkein and other writers who have pioneered the field.

Science Fiction is also relatively new. Fantasy is an offshoot from Science Fiction and, in most bookstores, is filed among the science fiction.

Now, extend this to specific elements. Someone writes a story that touches upon using the American Old West as a setting for effective sword and sorcery rather than medieval Europe. Someone else reads this story and realizes the literary impact of the subject matter, and decides to write a novel along the same lines. One author writes in response to another author.

One more example:

Yevgeny Zamyatin was a Russian writer. He wrote We. The book We inspired a lot of authors in the west to respond to the idea of Communism and its advancement through literary methods. These authors include George Orwell (1984 and Animal Farm), Ayn Rand (Anthem), and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World). In each instance, the author in question is writing a response to Zamiatan. They each had their own take on the same subject matter: Communism and Socialism is bad.

Blogs are a similar form of dialogue. Often, this dialogue is a lot closer to home and more direct, but the dialogue exists and is extant.

One of those means of conversation is in the distribution of memes through bloggers. A meme is a series of questions that cover information that is not publicly known about an individual. When tagged with a meme, the outcome is that you are meant to tell the world who tagged you, fill out the meme and post it, and then tag other bloggers with that same meme.

The outcome is a focused conversation on specific subject material.

However, in the blogging world, when you read someone else’s blog and find something they are writing about, you, as blogger, can respond to what another blogger wrote. One dialogue that has been going on, lately, is the secret homosexual characters in novels. This was spawned by J.K. Rowling announce on her U.S. book tour that Dumbledore was homosexual. Fans, of other authors, have asked whether or not they have characters that are homosexual but not in a way that is applicable directly to the plot or story.

The answer to this question, by at least one author, has generated a response in the news as well as among other bloggers.

Does it matter? Not really, personally, I don’t know that I would have read the Harry Potter series of books had I known about Dumbledore early on, personally, I wouldn’t have read the series of books and would have lost out on a well written, very creative, story. Dumbledore, in hindsight, doesn’t change the nature of the story nor does it cause me to rethink the series; his personal choices do not effect the super-story that is taking place with Harry at its center. Harry’s choices matter to me, not the supporting characters. Dumbledore, though prominent, was a supporting character.

That last paragraph was an addition to the dialogue that has been going on.

Lets say, however, that someone who has a website decides to talk about … oh … I don’t know… let’s say, relationships. For whatever reason, the five types of romantic communication strikes a chord with me. Without asking permission, I choose to offer my own take suggesting that a person read C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves and Eric Fromm’s book The Art of Loving as either supporting or dissenting to the original blog topic.

My writing does two things.

1. I get to write my own ideas on the subject at hand based off of what I am reading; and
2. I get to put those thoughts out there for someone else, possible the original writer, to read and respond to.

This is what dialogue is. When you speak to someone else, you expect them to respond. When a person does not respond, they either tacitly agree with you, or they disagree with you and choose not to respond, which then makes the first option true. A response, though, allows for ideas to be shared in such a way that other people can clarify what I am saying, append what I am saying, or contradict what I am saying.

One of the points to blogging is, specifically, to create conversations about different things. Writing is one of the topics I choose to discuss (In Order to Write); I also, when it is applicable, choose to discuss what I’ve written (Alicia Grey, Cassandra West, Clockwork Princess, and others); I also have other discussion sites going.

The blog, then, is a place where you can discuss something that you feel passionately about and want to share with other people. It is appropriate, when reading someone else’s blog, to write a post on your own site in response to theirs, and even more appropriate when you link back to that site for emphasis or as a means of pointing people to where you got your idea. This is why I often link to the articles I am reading that launch me into an essay on politics or other things.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

So, went to bed last night and fell asleep. Which, for those that profess to know me, is not odd. I can, and do, fall asleep almost anywhere if I need to. Sleeping in my bed, in my house, with my wife, in our room makes the whole sleeping thing that much easier to accomplish.

And then, about two hours later I was awake. There were issues I was mentally dealing with that I didn’t know I was mentally dealing with, and I went to the bathroom, which is a perfectly logical thing to do, and spent some time on the porcelain throne that I learned, a few days ago, takes several days to make, the final process of which is about 24 hours in an oven that causes the glaze and paint to adhere, permanently, to the ceramic.

As a result of that newfound understand of the complexities of toilets, I was sitting on one at 2 a.m. wondering why I was wide awake AND why I was not tired… or, at least, didn’t exactly feel tired.

Eventually I went back to bed not seeing an significance to sitting on a toilet that took days to make and 24 hours in a kiln before it was cooled and shipped… or that I carried a load of toilets in a 53 foot trailer from San Antonio, TX to Los Angeles, CA with a flat tire on my trailer which was, I know now, very illegal and very dangerous and could’ve ended in catastrophe. I also learned, on that trip, that when you hit the Ports of Entry to California, the people in the booths don’t want to hear as many variations on toilet (royal throne, porcelain throne, WC, water closet, etc.) as you can come up with when they ask what you are carrying in your trailer.

None of that had anything to do with what was happening with me last night.

I went back to bed. Erin asked, “Are you okay?”

I said, “Yes.”

She rolled over and went back to sleep.

I continued to lay there. Staring at what I could imagine was the ceiling and trying to go back to sleep. At some point I started thinking about the various writing projects that I have going on and what I need to do to advance in some of my goals (a first draft of Alicia Grey by the end of December… you know, earn the Macbook) and realized that I had an entirely different opening set of scenes for Alicia Grey than I’d written back in the summer – and, I resisted getting up and writing them.

After all, Erin stayed up late the other night to study, I went to bed, it was not fun or nice; and though I realize that, to be healthy, we have to learn to sleep when we need to sleep and that sometimes being married and working and living lives and going to school, etc., means that we will, occasionally, have different sleeping patterns.

My desire, when it comes to writing, is to write during daylight hours. I want to be in the mode of writing when the sun is up and when other people are at work so that when other people are no longer at work I have the same latitude to play as they do, but, at 2:40 a.m. all I could think about was how Alicia Grey woke up the first day she was staring school at a) her first high school; and b) a new school in a new town.

The draft over the summer was similar. The chapters were similar; but, as I lay there resisting the urge to get up and spend who knew how long re-writing everything I’d written before I got married. As I lay there with some very clear imagery in my head and this voice telling me what was happening to this teenage girl, I realized that I’ve not, effectively, done anything with Alicia Grey since our wedding because, honestly, I didn’t know what to do.

The summer draft had a prologue that I might go back over, but, at the same time, outside of some interesting (maybe) background information about a character who I thought would make his entrance almost immediately and is now waiting in the wings for his call to come, that got set aside late last night as I finally succumbed to the need to be awake, in front of my computer, and with lights on and a word processor humming (metaphorically) in front of me.

I am not obsessed with humming electric typewriters; I just come across as though I might like them.

(note: my typewriter, which is currently in Colorado at my parents ranch, is completely manual and I would love to get something like it, but smaller, to play with.)

(note2: I prefer the hum of a laser printer sitting on a desk rather than the hum of an electric typewriter. That is just an aside.)

(note3: As I was writing one of these notes I discovered that Microsoft Word will create a smilie if given half a chance and the right key strokes. That was a weird discovery.)

Anyway, aside from all my asides, I sat down in the front room, pulled out the trusty, rusty Macbook, opened a new instance of Microsoft Word, and placed, at the top of the page, the series, working title, and chapter and proposed (working) title of the first chapter. I then adjusted line spacing. Made some other minor changes, grabbed my jump drive, plugged it in, saved the file, and began typing away.

There were no thoughts of time or sleep or anything else. I was a writing fool. I started off with the titles and moved right into the description of what I could clearly see happening in my mind. I grabbed a notebook Erin had sitting on the sofa and tore out a blank piece of paper. I grabbed her pen (which was sitting there since I didn’t want to go find mine) and sketched a quit diagram of the house. Rooms, bathrooms, closets, living room, kitchen, and garage. I continued to write.

Then I had her out of the house and the flow kept going.

She was on a bike riding to school.

She was at school. I had to draw the school. Granted, I drew a replica of the school I knew best, but I drew the school; made some mental changes, I kept writing. I added the second character (first she interacts with) into the mix. I realized a subplot I was working through, the other day, in my head, might still work and be just the right mix for that character. It was nice. The writing flowed, flows.

And then, a couple or three hours later and about 5000 words, I discovered that two of the characters were cousins. At this point I started to peter. My body began to ache. There was some soreness behind my eyes, which is never pleasant, and I was finding myself staring at a screen and realizing I could keep going, but really, that whole tired thing was catching up with me (finally) and I wanted to go back to bed.

The problem with bed, the last couple of nights, has been that I have been sleeping on my arms in a really weird way, moreover, my joints, all of them, seem to be aching in a way that is not comfortable; so, sleep… not exactly the most comfortable endeavor to find myself in. More, Erin told me today that I’ve been trying to sleep with a hand touching her, which, in her estimation, is a partial cause for the way I’ve been sleeping. Regardless, at 5-something in the morning (actually, it was 5:36 a.m. if you want me to be VERY specific) I was back in the room, Erin woke up long enough for me to say, “I had to rewrite the first part of Alicia Grey.”

She said, “You had to rewrite the first part of Alicia Grey.”

I said, “Yes,” and that ended the conversation.

I added another 1200-ish words this afternoon and plan to do a little more writing this evening in between tickets and phone calls and helping other co-workers with issues they are having.

Yes, in case you missed the diatribe, I’ve restarted my novel and taken it, in less than 24 hours, over halfway to where it was sitting before I stopped working on it the other day.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Blog: simply, a web log, or an online journal or diary.

A personal blog is a unique thing. The blog should be unique to you, your personality, your interests, the things you want (and maybe feel) shared with the world. This does not mean things that are very private; it does mean the things you are passionate about.

I have a variety of blogs all with different purposes.

For example, there is In Order to Write. This blog is my take on various things I am specifically thinking about when it comes to writing and my various writing projects. I created In Order to Write as a means of fostering the communication of writing to a wider audience – one of the three things I feel are necessary to improve as a writer.

I also run StandingWater Creations (or sw-c.com) as a means of allowing family and friends, who are interested, an avenue into my life. This was a result of a move I made to the east coast (New Hampshire) and the sudden realization that I might not be able to make it on my own, have a cellphone, and be able to keep in better contact. StandingWater Creations was repurposed from a freelance technical and professional writing business to host my thoughts and is hosted through Jack’s server. Even though the origins of the site were to make money, the outcome, and the purpose of the site is as a grounds for my thoughts, the things that are happening to me, a gateway to other websites, etc. that specifically allows me to keep in touch with family and friends. The website holds no other purpose (and it is an important one) than that.

Recently, I started another blog (no link provided … yet) with the express purpose of seeking freelance or contract opportunities to assist others in setting up, maintaining, creating content for, and troubleshooting a specific piece of web software that I’ve bothered to learn, rather well, as well as code and database hacks. The outcome are, specifically, articles that are designed to 1) educate, 2) inform, 3) assist, and 4) attract business. Websites have to have some kind of value added to them – regardless of if they are personal or professional.

All of this means is that I have created a series of sites (to include project specific websites) that are to be used for individual specific purposes. When I sit down to write for In Order to Write, I am not thinking about StandingWater Creations or other websites. I am, first, thinking about writing, my creative writing, fiction, and how I am approaching material both theoretically and practically; and second, what would best help me, in its current form, build the content of the website so that it promotes the three part agenda I have set forth.

When I sit down (pretty much five times a week) to write entries for StandingWater Creations, my personal blog, I am not always thinking about writing; but rather, I am considering what is happening in my life, what I want people to know is going on, some level of communication or dialogue, and finally, how best to express what I think I should be writing in an interesting and personal manner. This consists of books, movies, television shows, personal events, politics, religion, thoughts, actions, marriage, my life, my wife, and the sundry things happening to (and around) me.

Most especially, though, the blog is a way for me to express how I feel about things that happen. Take a political figure. Sure, I can just speak my mind if someone brings up that person and asks my opinion. The problem with that approach is it opens a conversation; and honestly, I don’t care, most of the time, to get into a discussion (read argument) about someone. Most often, when starting a political conversation, the person starting it is following an agenda and I have learned that just stating my beliefs or understanding of an issue or politician is a trap for them to try and refute or counter my points. As a result, sometimes I want to share, and I am willing to listen, but I am not willing to really discuss what is going on.

That is a part of my personality.

When it comes to movies, you know, I watch a lot of movies. This does not mean that I am interested, or feel it necessary, to review every movie that I watch. I think, frankly, that is a rather poor use of my time. With that said, I do think that some movies are popular enough, or I am (or was) excited enough by them to tell the world what I thought. Across the Universe was one of those movies. I liked it. I thought other people might like it. Erin’s mother, Lisa, wanted to know what I thought, and I was planning to write something about it, anyway. The outcome, like many other movies, is that I wrote a review of the movie.

At the same time you get the review, you get what I thought.

Even a review of movies attaches itself to a theme. The theme is storytelling. I like to tell stories. I like to have people tell me stories. The better the story, the more enchanted I am by it and the more I want to talk about it. Stories are told through movies, books, television, the internet, people’s lives, orally, traditionally, and by the choices we each make in our lives. This is important to me. I like story. I like story so much that, when I deal with it and I find something that moves me, I need to share it. Sharing is necessary for me. That is one reason I blog. It is an imperative. That is why I started, as an aside, In Order to Write.

Sometimes, something changes in my life. Two summers ago, I decided to try acting. I wrote a lot about the acting experience. You haven’t read about that (with the exception of Erin and me going up the canyon to be featured extras in a movie we can no longer find information about) because I am no longer (or not at this time) experimenting with that. My life, right now, consists of work, writing, school, work, writing, and… oh, I am forgetting something… yeah, school. Throw in Erin (wife) and the time we spend together and you pretty much get what I am doing. When that changes, I guarantee you I will be writing about it.

What all of this equates to is that you have to like and enjoy and have a passion about what you are writing. When writing a technical document, knowledge (and ability to write) are two factors in the subject material, but actually being interested helps the process. When writing a paper for school, actually being interested in the take on the assigned subject helps write about the subject. This is why people who make academia their life have a very specific focus. For some, it is James Joyce and food. For others it is Emily Post and solitude. For others it might be the statistical anomaly of animals in the Saharan tundra.

The point is not what but rather your take.

If you are writing about movies, what is it about the movies that interests you?

If you are writing about politics, what is it about politics that interests you?

If you are writing about family, what is it about your family, or family, that interests you?

Believe it or not, the topic is less important than how you feel, what you think, what you’ve discovered, or how you got to the point you are at about that topic. Your expertise becomes a part of your experience, your education, and what you write. You can write about anything from ovarian cancer to the dominance of prostitutes in Times Square and as long as you have an opinion about it and are, in any way, informed about the subject material, you have something to write about.

Waiting for something to come along to spark your interest in creating a blog entry or in writing (in general) is less important than simply getting out there and writing about what you have going on around you, about what you know.

Sure, sure, this is generic, grade school advice about writing. I’ve just spent a lot of words telling you to write what you know and to pursue topics that mean something to you; but, really, that is the secret to successful, consistent, persistent, blog entries – and it’s the secret to writing in general. Write what you know and the rest will take care of itself.

If you are interested in writing a blog and don’t know what to pull from, honestly, the first hundred entries may feel like pulling teeth; but as you write you build the ability to write; and as you receive feedback, either orally or through e-mail and comments, you actually build the confidence to write. There is no other way to go about it. You have to do it in order to succeed at blogging. Any gimmick or shortcut is ultimately going to lead to a website that goes static, stale, and eventually dies because you’ve done nothing with it.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly