It's perfectly normal that extraordinary things happen to me. I'm an exceptional person. Oh, don't think I'm boasting. I mean to say that, unfortunately, I'm exceptional and that, unfortunately, I can't live by the rules. I must make my own.
― Cocteau
Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.
― Cherie Carter-Scott
It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye.
― Jodi Picoult
Workshop #7, facilitated by Dimitri Nasrallah, was about introducing extraordinary elements into our fiction. And you know you’re in for a good workshop when it starts with Godzilla. :-)
Godzilla is actually a metaphor for nuclear weapons. It was a response to the incident with the Lucky Dragon 5. The Lucky Dragon was a tuna boat with a crew of 23 who became contaminated on March 1, 1954, by nuclear fallout from the U.S. Castle Bravo thermonuclear testing on Bikini Atoll. The boat was 14 miles outside of what the U.S. considered the “danger zone” and though the ship was not affected by the blast itself, it became covered in radioactive ash.
Godzilla exists as a metaphor of the pain and destruction caused by the atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagaski and Hiroshima during World War II. In the Japanese 1954 film, Godzilla, it was explained that the monster was a prehistoric reptile of some sort who was mutated by radiation from a nuclear test conducted by the United States military in the Pacific Ocean. The large amount of radiation absorbed by the reptile caused it to grow to gigantic proportions.
- Screen Rant
Fiction writers of all genres employ the surreal, symbolic, or unfamiliar in their stories. There are several reasons for this, but unfortunately we weren’t given a lot of time to take notes so the only reason I wrote down is that it raised tension. I swear I’m going to take some kind of recording device to the next Writersfest I attend so I can transcribe the notes later!
Some of the considerations to keep in mind when using extraordinary elements are:
Motivation: what stimulates your characters to believe in the device?
Justification: How does the device fit into the fabric of reality?
Description: How is it presented and individualized – the fingerprint
Interaction: How does it move through the story, and how do your characters engage with it?
Balance: How much of this device can your world handle? How far can you push your readers’ suspension of disbelief?
We were then given a big chunk of time and the following prompt:
Write a scene that incorporates this one surreal element: A talking hand. To balance your narrative, use only people and places from everyday circumstances to fill out the rest of the story.
Here’s what I came up with:
“Talk to the hand ‘cause the face don’t care,” Grandma said with a snicker.
The hand was not impressed. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?” it asked.
“Do you have a name?” little Katie asked.
“Just Hand will do.”
“Katie,” her mother asked, slowly and carefully. “Where did you find that thing?”
The hand vibrated, fingers spread wide. “I am not a thing! I’m a hand!”
“In the Addams Family, they had a hand and they called it Thing,” Grandma said helpfully. “You any relation?”
The hand curled itself into a fist and refused to say anything further.
Earlier that day, Katie had been playing in the woods and followed the sounds of a commotion. Someone was crying for help as a big, shaggy dog was tossing something up in the air and then pouncing on it.
Katie knew that dog, it was Bruno, a well-known thief of toys. She also knew how to distract him.
“Here, Bruno,” she said, picking up a hefty piece of wood. “Look what I’ve got for you!”
She showed him the stick and tossed it as far as she could. Bruno abandoned whatever he’d been playing with and bounded after the stick. Katie crept closer and found the hand. “Thank you,” the hand said. “I was starting to feel sick from being tossed in the air.”
“You’re a hand,” Katie said in surprise.
“Bright child,” the hand said dryly.
Katie ignored its sarcasm and moved a little closer. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine, as long as that dog doesn’t come back.”
Looking down thoughtfully, Katie said, “You need a bath. Maybe you should come home with me.”
The hand drummed its fingers in the dirt as it thought about it. “All right,” it said finally. “Lead the way.”
Katie watched dubiously as it began to drag itself towards her. “Maybe it might be better if I carried you,” she suggested. “You know, in case Bruno comes back.”
The hand gave a long suffering sigh. “Very well.”
It had reached her feet by this time, and quickly crawled up Katie’s leg. Katie giggled as it reached her side and kept going until it was clutching her shoulder. Then she started for home.
“Katie,” her mother asked again. “Where did you find it?”
“I didn’t, Bruno did,” Katie said. “I rescued him.”
“Rescued him,” her mother said under her breath. “A disembodied hand.”
“Yes,” the hand said, uncurling itself. “And I’m most grateful. But I do not wish to cause discord, so I’ll just be on my way.”
“No!” Katie pleaded. “Mom, look at him. We need to help him. You said, we should always help God’s creatures. He’s one of God’s creatures, isn’t he?”
“Well, yes. But—”
“You said,” Grandma snickered.
“Please, can he stay? Please?”
The mother looked from her daughter’s hopeful face to the somewhat bedraggled hand, and back again. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “But you’re responsible for him.”
“Yay!” Katie held her hand over the talking hand and it jumped to high five her. The she rested her hand beside it so it could clamber up to her shoulder. They disappeared down the hall towards the bathroom.
“Well,” Grandma observed, “It could have been worse.”
“How so?” the mother asked.
“Those woods are full of strange things. She could have brought home something really unbelievable.”
It was a fun exercise and there was enough time left over for us to read a few of our stories out loud. There were hands that grew mouths, hands that were still attached to people but worked independently, telepathic hands, imaginary hands, disembodied hands, and mechanical hands. But to my surprise, I was the only one who wrote about a hand that had no connection to a body.
Weird, or what? LOL
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Well, the good news is that I spent more time in my office last week. The bad news is that I still didn’t get much extra writing done. My focus still isn’t what it should be, but it’s getting better too.
And no, despite all my good intentions, I still didn’t get my master to-do list or my sub to-do lists made. I have so much I’d like to be doing, and I really think those lists would help, so I need sit down tonight and just do them.
I had a bit of an epiphany about why it’s so hard for me to focus, it has to do with the sheer amount of stuff I can do, but knowing why and fixing the problem seem to be two very different things.
NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts
2004+712+302+675=3,693
UP – 578 words from last week
Kittens to the rescue! When in doubt for something to write about on Mondays, write about kittens. :-)
As for other words . . . I caught up my journals and jotted down a couple of ideas, but I also found a couple of new games to distract me. But I’m happy to report that I reached the saturation point with the games and I’ve deleted the links to them.
I’m finding it easier to work in my office so I spent more time in there than I have been, despite it being a busier week than I expected.
And I pulled out one of my first, as yet unfinished, novels to see where I went wrong, and I realized I don’t like my main character. I’m going to have to figure out how to change that because I’ve already written the sequel (and I like that main character) and I’ve got the bare bones of an idea for a third one (really like that main character too).
Goals For Next Week:
Get all my blog posts done and maybe a few extra words besides.
EDITING:
2 ½ hours
This time was was editing on Element Fire, and I’m thinking I’m going to have to spend some time on the back story and the historic records to keep me from getting confused about what’s going on.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on An Elemental Spirit.
TECH & TRAINING:
Still nothing here.
Goal For Next Week:
If I don’t come up with up with something this week then I’m deleting this item off the list, like I did marketing.
POETRY:
Last week’s form, the Snám Suad, was a little tricky so it was all the more surprising I managed to create three examples of it.
Thursday afternoon I attended a seminar on the poetic device of Duende. I’m not sure that my grasp on it was one hundred percent, but I came away from it with the rough draft of a poem and the makings of another one. So it was time well spent.
But going to the seminar used up all my peopling skills for the day, which meant I had nothing left for the poetry reading that evening. But to be honest, I’m not sure I’d have gone to the reading anyway because they tend to be crowded and I just can’t handle crowds anymore.
Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share and work on the poems I started.
CRAFTING:
I went to the stitch in at the library on Tuesday, and while I was there a few of us decided to check out what the art club was doing. This proved to be a mistake because it left me with the urge to pull out my art stuff and do some drawing or painting. I resisted the urge, but it did get the wheels turning.
I’m still dithering a bit on what my next project should be. I was thinking about doing a placemat and napkin set with poinsettias on it (from a kit) for the Christmas display we’re going to do late summer, but then I received this book I ordered a couple of weeks ago.
It has 120 different stitches in it, plus amazing examples on what you can use them for, and I started thinking about doing a sampler. And then I got the idea to do it like a zentangle – section off squares and then fill them with three to five different kinds of stitches in random patterns. I think it would look kind of neat.
Goal For Next Week:
Better organize my needlework crafts; decide on next project.
WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox and I started reading The Book of Magic, by Alice Hoffman.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep reading.
THE WEEK AHEAD:
I’ve got a couple of appointments this week, but they’re on the same day so I’m getting the interruptions over with all at once. Oh, except I have a poetry group meeting Wednesday night. But then I don’t usually accomplish much in the evenings anyway.
I am definitely going to give the list making another shot. I even have a special narrow, lined, notepad to make my list on. One of my problems with lists in the past is that I over-think them. So I’m going to forget the sub-lists and just do one list of everything. I can cross things off as I do them, and add more when I think of them.
I think I need an attitude change for Elemental Spirit. I need to stop thinking of it as a chore and find a way to look forward to having it done. It might be a little time-consuming, but I also think I should start by figuring out the prophecy for the Illezie and then maybe more detailed historical records. That way I can use excerpts from them for my chapter headings. And as far as TraxTime goes, there’s no reason I can’t install it on this laptop too.
I have a regular stitchery guild meeting on Tuesday, and hopefully I’ll have decided on my next stitchery project. Believe it or not, there’s another afghan I want to make, but I’m also thinking I may start the zentangle sampler. Of course there’s also the half dozen “in progress” projects I could finish up, but they’re not exactly ones that are easy to take with me to a stitch-in.
My office is starting to look better and better for me to get some serious work done, it’s just a matter of dragging myself down the hall to use it. Even though there are more distractions, as in books and papers and the view, I sit at my desk and I tend not to check social media or play games as much. Good reasons to try and use my office more.
The track is out there, I just need to get back on it.
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