Growing greenly stronger

I sit here wondering what to blog about, then turn on the Food Network and feel like I could talk for hours.

Food as medicine, then! I think of this whenever I see TV chefs scattering green herbs over their dishes. Hundreds of years ago, that clump of rosemary in the garden was thought to be a repellant of witches and treatment for paralysis. Sage wasn't just for seasoning turkey: it was recommended for just about all health problems at one point or another. History was a time of many superstitions and imagined cures. But herbs were also used as food seasoning, so it clearly didn't hurt to cultivate plants and spread them around.

Sage isn't actually a panacea, and rosemary probably isn't a miracle cure for gout. But studies have shown that both plants can be used to manage Alzheimer's Disease. Pretty much all vibrantly green vegetables are full of phytochemicals, which can prevent cancer cells from forming, and all greens contain vitamins essential to human health. Our ancestors couldn't have known this stuff. They just knew that vegetables and herbs were wholesome. I always think of my chef professor, who explained that even modern medical science isn't sure of all the reasons greens are healthful -- just that greens clearly are healthful. There's no such thing as too much fresh chopped parsley in a dish, it's nutritious stuff and it also happens to taste good.

So, as lame as it is when a sprig of fantasy herb can cure any horrible illness ever caught, maybe there's some cultural basis for it. Plants can be medicine, and we're not always sure why. We just should eat them, that's all, and we use plant-laced lotions and supplements in hopes that that'll help, too. There's something mysterious about a living thing that unfolds out of the humble mud. Maybe its magic-like properties can make us stronger.

I'll admit, the mystique of healing plants -- and the way their curative properties are sometimes pure myth -- is why herbs play such a large role in Remedy. I also like having excuses to buy gardening books full of colour pictures. Another advantage food plants have over chemical cures is their sheer prettiness, gosh, I want a garden now. But I'll have to settle for heading to the grocery store and decorating the inside of my fridge.

A balanced writerly diet

Gosh, I forgot about my serious blogging.

It's been a while since I had a crit group. I was part of an online group some months ago -- wonderful people, all SFF writers with interesting insight -- but it wasn't organized enough to hold together for long. Now, I meet with a group of local NaNoWriMo survivors on Mondays. There's not a lot of serious critique discussion at these meetings, but I get the crazies if I don't think about my invented world often enough and it's nice to hang around with people who understand that.

It's pretty weird, the balance of people a writer requires. The actual act of writing is best done alone, but too much of that is a recipe for poor mental health. Friendly encouragement helps, but craft will suffer if a writer has nothing but cheerleaders around them. Criticism helps, but it's notoriously difficult for writers to accept crit when they have solo work and encouragement instead. I'm reminded of ligers, the lion/tiger hybrids with conflicting social/loner instincts: writers need regular doses of some very different things, and it's all a bit bipolar if you think about it.

I've been trying out some different options lately. Writing courses, and discussing the rather unusual Remedy with editors. There are so many minds out there. Some of them have good ideas for how to improve my manuscript, or generally do things better as a writer, and it's been very educational. But once I get out of holiday binging-and-sleeping-in mode, I think I'll bury myself more thoroughly in the craft for a while.

On fictional role models

Today, Livejournal.com's Writer's Block asks: "Is there any character from a novel or film that serves as a role model to you? What kind of advice do you think she or he would give you regarding any major issues you're facing right now?"

I imprinted on video games, and those stories are the first ones I think of when I think of stories that moved me. But for this intent and purpose, it sounds like a fictional character is a fictional character.

I don't really have any specific characters who stand out to me as long-term role models. It's the general spirit of fiction that has shaped my life; fiction is full of getting things done and changing for the better. Fiction has made it clear that if the world is set against you, you should still fight for your cause because it's entirely possible for you to win. Even if you're ordinary, or an underdog. Outcasts can carve themselves a niche, mild-mannered scientists can fight off terrifying monsters, and anyone can solve a mystery if they put their mind to it.

As far as guidance for my my current writerly situation? Weirdly enough, I think of King Bowser Koopa from the Super Mario games. Yes, that princess-kidnapping monster turtle jerk. He's spent the last twenty years mounting ambitious efforts to get what he wants, being defeated and humiliated, and getting right back up to try another plan. Nothing keeps that guy down for long. He's completely sure that he's going to win someday and everyone will see how great he is. I can't imagine Bowser would have specific advice on writing (although he was portrayed as a closet poet in one game), but he still holds his head high and continues trying. That's very inspiring to me.

Thoughts from a first-time Wrimo

Well, National Novel Writing Month has come and gone, that great annual migration of highly caffienated wildebeest. I finished at 50 900 words.

I have to say, it was fun. The NaNoWriMo community seems to have a good balance of discipline ("I'm going to work hard because I know I can do it!") and whimsy ("Let's add a scene with robot monkeys!"). Pushing your current limits as a writer is important, but don't forget how to have fun, you know? With this in mind, I spent 45 000 words developing my world and figuring out what makes my newest characters tick. Then ninjas invaded for absolutely no reason. That part won't make the final cut of Rhythm, I'm sure, but at least my last two days of writing were a blast!

Some poor agents opened their E-mail today and found awful first drafts of novels in their inboxes. That's an unfortunate side effect of NaNo, yes. But I think the overall benefit to amateur writers is well worth a few horrible queries. I'm looking to keep producing stories about my fantasy world, and have fun in my free time; this month, I did both. And even writers who didn't "win" NaNo have written more than they ever have in one month, or stumbled across great stories in the middle of their sleep-deprived keyboard smashing. More power to them.

I'm going to leave Rhythm alone for a while, then treat my NaNo files as planning notes. The scenes are too disjointed to truly add up to a novel, whatever the wordcount meter says. But there's some good, useable material buried in those ramblings, and that's all I really wanted.

Spreading the word

I got to attend the launch of Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. Gosh, I feel so lucky to live in a city she happens to favour (not that a literacy-fueled roadtrip wouldn't have been good times). I'm still fairly giddy from meeting Ms. Atwood at the signing table and receiving her well wishes for my own fledgling writing career, as if reading The Year of the Flood hasn't been inspiring me enough.

What really got me about the launch event was the local choir group performing hymns from the book, as the God's Gardeners characters would sing them. How amazing must it be to hear music composed with your story and lyrics in mind? I'm told that Atwood gave the book launch organizers free rein to create the dramatic readings and performances, so the launch tour was essentially made up of fanwork. I think that's a great example of the viral nature of fiction, the way its ideas can spread from person to person and leap across media, and touch more people the more forms they take on. Writing is a solitary activity, and so is reading. But they can inspire so much more.

It's something to think about while I charge toward the NaNoWriMo finish line, anyway. I'm going start another bout of editing after this November madness, so high ambitions will be my friend. Also chocolate, coffee, and all the other basic authorly equipment!

Seizing the ideals

One of the highlights of this past Worldcon -- for me, anyway -- was getting to hear Tom Doherty's tales of the publishing industry. Speculative fiction has always been a genre for people who think big and take chances. He'd love to see a novel submitted to Tor, he said, about a protagonist who discovers endless clean energy. People would read that book, root for that protagonist, and think about how this real-world energy crisis can be solved. Speculative fiction can make people think, Mr. Doherty said. Speculative fiction has the power to change the world. I was pretty overwhelmed by the truth in that. For the rest of that afternoon, I was shiveringly excited at the thought that ideas can do that.

It's a nice change from the school of thought that fantasy and sci-fi are silly escapist fluff. A lot of times, they are, yes. But writing in general is romantic and escapist. Isn't it nice to think that human pain has some greater meaning? Literary characters suffer and struggle for a reason, even if the reason is simply to be part of a satisfying story -- real life doesn't always wrap up that neatly. While we're doing this escapist fiction thing, it's always nice to take a lesson away and apply it to real life. Be kind to your loved ones because they won't be around forever; give weird people a chance because they might be wonderful on the inside; don't do anything you're unwilling to face the consequences of. Fiction makes life's lessons a lot clearer. So why not add some speculation to the mix? Hey, if book characters would tackle a future energy crisis and find a way to fix it, why can't we? Do that carpe diem thing we're always hearing about.

I really believe that fantasy can open minds. That's a big part of why I write about non-human sentients: it shows that empathizing with someone very different from you is possible. If we can feel like we know a dragon as a friend, judging other humans by their gender or skin colour suddenly looks pretty ridiculous. I'd like to do what I can to show humans how to be better people. It won't really help the energy crisis, but it's something!

That most wonderful time of the year

I'm finished line-editing Remedy, and the agent submissions will begin shortly. Anticipation sits in my throat like an inadequately chewed hunk of danish, except that anticipation is far more delicious.

As for this November? Well,I 'm still waffling on whether to do NaNoWriMo. Hammering out fifty thousand words of a new manuscript would be great, and I have plenty of worldbuilding notes to work with. And the community! Lots of writerly folks flock together at this time of year! My favourite coffee shop even makes itself an official NaNo hotspot. If I can quit being a weenie about the 1667-words-per-day average, I might just give it a try.

So, blog-following people! Are you doing NaNo and/or trying to talk yourself into it?