A Thank You to More Followers, and How We Need to Wander When We Learn

October 8, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

First of all, I just have to step back and take note of a few things. I’ve gotten many “Likes” on some of my posts. I have many more views on my entries as well, and I enjoy looking at the different places that they come from and guessing to myself who is looking at what. I also now have 53 followers.

Fifty-three.

That may not seem like a lot compared to other Blogs and Journals I’ve seen, but bear in mind that I’m still remembering the summer time when I barely had any Followers in the single digits and–as far as I am concerned–the fact that there are even a few of you is still awesome.

Also, I’ve noticed that some people are specifically typing in matthewkirshenblatt.wordpress.com+the article they’re interested in. It is definitely really flattering and inspiring for me to see that. I honestly don’t know where all of you are coming from, but I think it’s safe to say that you are all awesome and that I feel honoured that you like what I have to say: or at the very least what I write.

Adjusting to this new habit of posting every Monday and Thursday–along with finding what images I can use with every post–was a bit of a challenge at first. Sometimes it still is. I used to write a post here every day and then it became every two days and now I give myself more room. I need to in order to work on some of my other creative pursuits. Still, I do get a tremendous amount of satisfaction in pushing the “Publish” button myself these days, instead of regulating each post to the scheduled automation option. that and I like the quotes of inspiration that come up after I do them. I guess I’m a bit of a sucker for those. But that said, I know I’m going to have more things to say and I want to maintain my place to say them.

One thing that this Blog does encourage me to do is to not only keep creating, but also keep exploring and recording my explorations as well. In many ways, whatever I learn adds to the world that I created inside of me. I search for things that interest me and I try to understand them. Sometimes I will mess around with things and make something I didn’t intend to. A lot of the time I use this as a forum to challenge myself to find or make something new.

I take basic research skills and my own interests–and things that I have picked up over the years that fit into both or were passed on to me–and I go into tangents with them. I always have.

If I were, or ever become a teacher, I would be the kind of person that would try to important basic skills like research and some questions of writing. But I think the kind of people I would meet would be those that already have those skills and ones that I can occasionally throw certain books or works at, or talk about things that I love, and basically let them “have at it.” I would “teach them in increments.” I’d mostly be a guide and I’d really step in if someone had a question or wanted my opinion on something.

Other than that I’d most talk a bit, and throw challenges at people while offering constructive criticism and suggestions where needed. I think I would just like to be that person that can work with a person’s skills and interests: honing them further and expanding on them … especially if they coincide with mine.

But I think I’d be a mostly tangential guide: much like I am whenever I write on here or talk to people in general. Your Following and reading encourages me to keep doing this and I hope that we can continue to view some interesting things together: or, like I always say, be entertained. Take care my friends.

What Nostalgia is Made From

October 4, 2012December 16, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

It was in the winter of 2008-2009 that I came up with Nostalgia. It was my first winter living on my own and as such I was spending a lot of time in my apartment. This was the point where I was training myself to write something each day–publicly–to put my writing out there and alleviate some of the isolation and loneliness that I was feeling at that time.

Spending a lot of time in such a relatively small space–in a room of my own–gave me time to think. I thought back to the woods behind my old high school of Thornhill Secondary and how a friend of mine and I used to walk through them talking about different things. I had a few key lines of “Nostalgia” written down already at that point, but I needed a context for them.

Originally, I imagined a scenario with two childhood friends–two boys–who meet in the forest. One of them leaves and goes on with his life, while the other one stays in the woods and never ages a day. Then one day, the friend that left returns as a much older adult–having been worn down by time and experience–while the other is still young but in many ways much, much older than the other. I was also inspired by the times when my class in elementary school would go on overnight trips to places like Montreal or Paris, and I’d stay behind in the “skeleton-crew” class. At one point I’m pretty sure I was the only student of my grade in one class.

Sitting in my apartment made me think about a lot of those feelings, and the past, and that essence of it that I wanted to capture in a very precise way: an eternal and universal moment. I’m not sure what made me change the story to what it is, and making it only one central protagonist: one little girl. If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten, but it worked out well.

It is the best vignette I’ve ever made and I am proud of it. It cuts like an icicle into a human heart, and drifts away as transitory as a snowflake … or a shriveled balloon into the distance. It deserves to be seen, and have more company again. One day. Soon.

Seriously, Story? Get Out of My Head! And Then Writing With That

September 27, 2012September 27, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

So this was me a few days ago.

I already know that I need to work on my collaboration, but I have this story idea. It was supposed to be a minor one: one of my old usual one-off post stories I’ve made in another forum but something happened.

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling. I found myself staring at a blank screen. The story was there–mostly clear in my head–and I was looking at this screen and became very aware of the fact that I needed to move my hands to write the thing into existence. If I didn’t move my hands, or find the energy, this story would not exist at all.

So I switched away from my writing screen because I got tired of looking at it and vowed to go back and do something with it later. I was in the mindset of that I needed to get this story done so I could do my other work. So I sat at the screen again and condensed what I knew of the events into a post. I had a lot of details that I also needed to keep track of and I didn’t write them down because this was supposed to be a one-off story and it was also supposed to be one bloody post.

This occurred on and off for three days or so: with fits of procrastination and writing some posts for this Blog. The story sat in my head: sagging under this heavy weight that was beginning to put me into a very autistic or at least one-track mentality. I guess some would consider it borderline obsession, but the fact was I couldn’t ignore it and it was too big to warrant one post.

All right, fine. You win story. I’ll give you more room. So finally I started writing it and once I had that first line, I thought, “Okay, now I know you will get on the page.” I even changed one of the main character’s names as I wrote it and it worked. I had everything figured out more or less. So you think that it was smooth sailing from there, right? Right?

The answer is no. Hell no.

Then I found myself making more names. The next thing I know I am calling up back-stories and keeping them in front of my eyes like translucent membranes while writing character dialogue and interaction. After I made my first post, each one came slowly and methodically with many pauses in-between as I had to keep my concentration and self-discipline in line.

Before I know it, my one-off story has a whole ton of world-building behind it for something that was supposed to be a somewhat intelligent parody of a genre. I mean, I was prepared for the fact that I was layering my story and the nuances of my characters, but this was getting ridiculous: fucking ridiculous. I used to be able to write several pages of interactions in a day and I was getting bogged down because I wanted it done and out of the way so I could move onto other things.

I had to fight with some depression: with the possibility that no one was going to read it, with asking myself if I was just trying to impress people, with the fact that it wasn’t going to be any good, and the fact that I was spending way too much time and effort on something that should have been a one-off and very few people are going to see anyway. But I was also asking myself why I wanted to make this story. What was so important about making it and placing it where I did? And that was when I realized something: that sometimes when I create, it’s not a river rushing through the structure of me, but it’s me fighting against myself.

Basically, I was fighting against myself: trying to overcome myself to finish this story because I knew that once the damned thing was done, I would feel a lot better. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that sculptors sometimes beat the shit out of their clay to make what they want. It is just as much frustration as it is a need to create.

And I’m using profanity for a reason here. Creating can be tedious but also an ugly, messy business that tears into the blackest, dirtiest, filthiest parts of your psyche to express something from inside your mind into words. Sometimes, as I wrote this thing, I thought maybe I’m old. Like I said, I used to write several pages a day of things but my brain also likes to keep making things intricate and build-up a conflict to the boiling point.

Now, once that build-up was finished and I got to the action, I actually moved pretty fast and was caught up in the moment. It was so strange. Before this, it was like I was boring holes into a blank screen with my eyes–willing something into existence–and actually feeling my head get congested and feeling heat radiate off of my body as I sweated. It was like that energy kept ebbing and waxing–like I was visualizing something inside me consuming itself–until, finally, I found that rhythm and I just felt that creativity blaze inside of me again.

At one point, I had to eat voraciously because I had burnt that much heat moving and squirming around. But by that point, I was almost done the entire story. And when I did, I felt this tremendous sense of relief. I overcame myself. I’ll tell you, I don’t always succeed in overcoming myself but it is always feels like a success when I do.

Of course, I still feel like writing more things. I also have to remember to pace myself and not rush matters. There are other things going on with my life that also contributed to my sense of needing to do my primary work, but I know that I can’t put all creative and personal facets of me on hold to work on one thing, and I shouldn’t. I put pressure on myself. But at least, even though it may have been an engineered battle in my head, it was–this time–a battle that I didn’t lose.

Fate, Fortune, and Freewill: The Challenges of Table-Top Role-Playing

September 24, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

So during my last game session with my friends, one of my characters seems to have died. This would actually be the first time I had a character that died in a table-top role-playing game. Sir Vaeric Aedrin of the Order of the Imperial Knights was last seen drowning in a sandstorm in a desert on Mandalore. Why did this happen? Well, very simply enough: he failed his Survival and Endurance rolls on the D20 system and the last I saw of him was him being buried in sand.

I’ll admit. I wasn’t very happy. But for the most part I really liked how I role-played him. Sometimes you have to understand that, in at least a D20 role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons or one that uses the former’s rules, a lot of your actions and their consequences are determined by the role of the dice.

It can be frustrating. You come up with these ideas and you plan out what you want to do–though some cases you have enough additional modifiers to add to the dice number to exceed the difficulty number–and then you have to basically trust in the die or dice not to fuck you over. And sometimes that D20, that twenty-sided die, is not always your friend.

That’s not the only challenge in role-playing this kind of game however. There is also the challenge in creating a personality for your character and to keep role-playing that personality consistently. I like to create back stories for my characters and then attempt to have the character act according the nature I made for them. The thing is, even barring the fact that you could make a roll that changes the outcome of a situation, you have to also take into account that your character will change. It’s impossible for them not to. You have to figure that stress and particular situations will greatly influence them. Your Dungeon Master or perhaps more accurately your Game Master–if they are any Game Master at all–will present challenging situations for you to role-play through. I don’t just mean creating physical obstacles or enemies to kill, but moral quandaries and interactive role-play situations as well.

For instance, Sir Vaeric as well as his commander Sir Kentari and the recent addition Sir Hett go into a Mandalorian base to investigate it: as one of their other team-mates had a calling from the Force that there was something important about this place. They end up getting caught in a fire-fight between two Mandalorian factions. Choosing a side becomes easy in that their new companion Sir Hett is on one side. But it’s what happened afterwards that I’m thinking about. Sir Vaeric is a bladesmaster and a man of honour, yet his allegiance is ultimately to the Empress, or as was his battle cry, “For Empress and Empire.” There are these refugees and the surviving Mandalorians that are protecting them. They are all headed to the same place to, presumably, the Resistance of a Death Watch ruled Mandalore.

Sir Vaeric tactically believes that having more Mandos on their side could bolster their chances of survival. He also thinks it’s the right time to do to allow the refugees–victims of Death Watch’s allies–to have some protection and be able to fight in the Resistance: maybe even as a gesture of good will so that the Resistance will be more inclined to give he and his fellow Knights their Prince back. Sir Kentari, on the other hand, along with Sir Hett remember their oaths as Imperial Knights and see their mission to get their Prince back as paramount. They also greatly esteem their abilities over everyone else’s and have a certain degree of arrogance that is something of a trademark among Imperial Knights. They rebuke Sir Vaeric–thinking he is delirious from a neck wound–and in the end even he sees that refugees would slow them down and attract more notice to them.

In the end, the refugees and their Mando Clan are free to leave and both parties go their separate ways: which is just as well because we also encountered a sandstorm that would have killed all of them had they come with us. But you see with this example of how Sir Vaeric’s personality and his oaths conflict. What complicates this even further is that I was also playing Dravas C’Tor: my humanitarian Force-sensitive archaeologist and he would have definitely wanted those refugees saved. In retrospect, separating the two personalities–as well as what I want to as a player–was definitely a challenge and it can be easy to confuse the two.

Another notable example was when we were all in the desert, Sir Kentari had to make a choice between rescuing his Knight Brethren that fell in the winds and C’Tor. Dravas C’Tor in another game accidentally killed his Master and failed to save the life of his Knight Brother in a previous quest. Sir Kentari would have loved to save Sir Vaeric and Sir Hett and left C’Tor to rot. But his mission was to save the Prince and C’Tor was selected by the Empress to be the negotiator between the Empire and the Resistance: since he had ties with the latter. In the end, Sir Kentari had to save a man he despises, “For Empress and Empire.”

I think another confusing matter that does tend to come up is remembering that there is what you as a player wants or knows, and what you as a character would do. You might think that after a long time of role-playing, it would get easier to differentiate the two, but doesn’t. You will always be challenged: especially when you play characters with different experiences and knowledge. I can’t tell you of the times I wanted to access computers just to remember that I’m not my NX droid, or examine the lore of a civilization and I’m not my scholar character, or even sometimes get aggressive and realize that is how my Sith character would be. Now it is wanting to go into direct combat and remembering that I’m not my Imperial Knight anymore.

The thing is that when I make a character, there are commonalities from my own personality. They tend to be knowledge-based or artistic in some way: even if it is being artistic with a lightsaber blade. But what I know as a player or, as someone who has lived a thousand lives as a player to adapt George R.R. Martin’s phrase, is not necessarily something I know or can do in-character.

So really, I can sum it up like this: I have an idea of where my character has been and where they want to go. There are rules in place to see if what they do actually works or how their actions actually happen. At the same time, I have to make decisions that are separate from the dice rolls. Sometimes, I really don’t like dice rolls and numbers: partially because I have difficulty with numbers, but also I tend to role-play or act out my characters more than rely or depend on my statistics. However, I also try to remember my statistics because there do need to be rules in place–to create a structure–and it is a pretty cool thing when you roll your die and you get a 20 or, in my die’s case, an “EQ.”

I would have been very angry if, say, Sir Vaeric died in the desert automatically and there was nothing I could about it. A lot of players would have been pissed that they hadn’t died in battle. But the way our GM did it made a lot of sense. We had to roll to pass Endurance and Survival checks. We had the chance to succeed or fail. We didn’t just immediately die in an arbitrary way. Also, it’s realistic. When you find yourself in unfamiliar terrain and you’re not prepared to be there or deal with harsh environmental conditions, you are at risk. Weather brings armies down. You can be the greatest swordsman in the galaxy, but when a sandstorm and static electric currents assault you, you’re probably going to be screwed.

I’ll admit that numbers and statistics and feats do play a role in something like a D20 game and I am not always the best at figuring our the rules. But I also know it is a lot more than just numbers or the equipment you get or the back-story you make. In my other article, Role-Playing as Interactive World-Building, I talk about how a role-playing is a creative collaboration and it’s no less true here. Your character will evolve. You will roll twos on your D20 and fail a medical procedure that could have saved a companion’s life. Out of character, you know that’s not your fault, but in character there is the reactions of everyone to consider. You incorporate the results of rolls and actual decisions you make into how you and your characters interact with and change the world you make.

In the end, I’d say that when you table-top role-play, your first collaborators along with the GM are fate, fortune, and freewill. There is a plan and the dice can randomize that plan, and your game might have a particular spirit of its own, but your decisions are still very much important.

A Collaboration Project in Progress

September 17, 2012December 11, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

So a little while ago, I mentioned I was starting a new project. I know that for some people who know me, that really doesn’t narrow it down a lot. I’m always thinking about short stories still in the queue of my head, the graphic novel script that’s been languishing in my binder, and a few other things as well.

This one is different. A few years ago my friend Angela Jordan, now Angela O’Hara, wanted to do a comics collaboration. At the time, I really wasn’t that skilled with creating comics scripts and–even now–they take more effort to create than a play or film script, or even a short story. Our original idea was very ambitious and I eventually created a very elementary and simple first story that I hoped Angela and I could flesh out into a comic. I had no knowledge of panels then and even now I still have issues with figuring out anything other than some of the basics in my head of how a page layout is supposed to look like.

We went our separate ways for a while: Angela taught in Japan and eventually got married, while I moved out to York residence and started my Humanities Grad Program. Years later we got back in touch and I decided that there was a way we could side-step some of the difficulties we were facing before.

Superhero comics have been done so often that people often see it as the comics medium itself as opposed to a genre. It’s interesting because comics didn’t start out with superheroes–if you look at old slapstick comic strips and political cartoons as examples–but they did gain popularity for the medium.

Based on some of the work I’ve seen Chris Ware–a cartoonist who loves creating beings (including superhero figures) of basic geometrical shapes on vast, empty and existentially lonely backgrounds, the strangely small and greater world of Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince and Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman’s Miracleman along with a great many other superhero comics I’ve looked at in my life something started to come together in my head. It wasn’t really until I looked at Sarah Howell’s silent comic pamphlet–reminding me of their power–that I found the form for this thing I wanted to make with Angela.

Yet a lot of the above is stuff that happened after the fact. Actually, the idea for the entire thing–still in development now–was brought on by a video game song. It’s amazing how music can help you visualize certain scenes in your head.

So right now, I am in the process of creating the story for this “silent superhero comic.” I’ve given Angela some sample art to look at as foundations or influences for the work’s potential style while telling her about the scene I made in my head. But right now I need to do more. I’m now developing a bit of the world and the main characters. I think I will have to crudely sketch out what I want them to look like. One thing I’ve learned through making a few “ordinary” comics scripts, is that drawing out a rough look at what the page should look like does wonders to help you and someone else know what it is you want to write about.

The difference this time is that we plan to make this a small pamphlet of sixteen or seventeen pages–possibly double-sided–for each part. I originally wanted this to be a one-shot thing to allow us to brush up on our skills again before doing anything else, but at the same time I can see the potential in some of this.

It’s funny. I once thought I’d grown past superhero comics but I’ve been researching and talking about concepts behind them a lot this summer. They have certain rules and conventions that can be followed, bent or broken. But I’ve learned that going back to the essentials or “the basics” can be very important no matter what else you might do and all the more so for superhero archetypes that are really extensions of the stories of heroes and gods. When you also think of cartoons and children’s illustrations as archetypes as well, you can see where a lot of my influences want to come in. So you can probably see why I’ve had a bit of a superhero obsession lately. Lately. Okay, somewhat.

Basically, I want to post updates of this as of officially unnamed silent comic project or, as Angela put it even more eloquently, this “superhero fairytale” whenever I possibly can. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything besides stuff on the creative process, reviews and articles: but finally I get to begin to play around with some world-building and alongside a really talented artist.

You can find Angela’s work in two of her Deviant Accounts: her Angela Jordan one, her Angela O’Hara account, and her professional artist’s website. Here is one sample of an image she created from our previous collaboration: one I always look at even to this very day.

As for me, I need to keep working and also keep my creative side fresh. As someone might have said, if it isn’t in writing it doesn’t exist. Well, now it is in writing and now, I hope to to do my part to make it happen.

What’s That Sound? It is the Sound of A Song of Ice and Fire … Singing

September 13, 2012June 10, 2013 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

File:A Game of Thrones Novel Covers.png

I admit that last week I was not meeting my quota of a post on Monday and Thursday. But in my defense, I had a very good excuse: namely, finishing off reading George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.

I’ll tell you now: I didn’t originally anticipate writing an article on this series. In fact, it’s ironic because I never planned on reading the series in the first place. I know: that’s blasphemy and all that. So here I was at the turning point of finishing my Master’s Program, typing up and haphazardly organizing my notes on mythic world-building when my friend Noah messages me and asks me essentially where I’ve been for about a year now. I tell him I’ve been writing my paper for that time and more and as well going a little bit crazy.

So he tells me about A Song of Ice and Fire. Now, I only knew about it peripherally. I had friends who were–and are–still complaining that Martin is taking too long writing the books and they spend that time speculating about what happens next. You have to understand, I went through my epic fantasy reading phase where each book is a tome and a half long a while ago at this point. Not too long ago, I was reading and rereading books and articles for my Master’s Thesis. I’d also attempted to slog through all of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and failed from lack of attention. In addition and I know this is really going to sound snobby, I sometimes have this inherent distrust for something that is that popular: though I’ve ignored that distrust multiple times in the past and this was no except.

But it was also more than that. I didn’t want to start reading something and investing myself into it. Because those kinds of books–if they are good ones which A Song of Ice and Fire is–they will do it to you and I was already becoming a master of procrastination. Moreover, I was afraid of letting more imaginary characters into my head space and investing in them if that makes any sense at all.

It turns out, though, it was exactly what I needed.

It was also very fitting. The irony that I had originally avoided reading a series of mythic world-building because of my mythic world-building project did not escape me and it was a problem that was rectified after letting myself table-top role-play again and hearing in tangent things about Westeros and that world in snippets. You know what I mean: your friends telling you little things about green men and fire priests and politics but not wanting to spoil anything for you because they believe that it is a crime that you of all people aren’t reading this story? Yeah, those kinds of snippets and previews that you read online as well.

So I will try not to go into any spoilers and just make a few writing observations about Martin’s ongoing masterpiece. The best way to start this is to talk about something that seemingly doesn’t relate to anything here but ultimately will.

I’m going to talk about Achilles’ shield.

When I was in Undergrad, I took a course called Interpretations of Homeric Epic where our professor told us about the shield of the Myrmidon hero Achilles in Homer’s Iliad. What is so special about this shield? Well, it is a shield that encapsulates the sun and moon, the world, the people farming it, warring in it, and serves as a microcosm of an entire world: the same world that Homer depicts in his narrative that he applies to our world when he writes or tells it. One possible literary term for the metaphor of the Shield, if you’d like to see it, is ekphrasis: which is essentially a method of describing and bring an experience to a reader or listener through the use of immense and multi-layered detail.

I will freely admit that I took some dilettante-like and potentially inaccurate liberties in defining ekphrasis as a literary device–which Achilles’ Shield represents–but I also think it really describes the intricate details inherent in A Song of Ice and Fire‘s narrative. The books themselves are a source of ekphrasis: along with the weirwood trees and other beings that find themselves becoming more immanent and saturated into their world.

Through a few perspectives, you will find yourself awash in a sea of beauty, sex, cruelty, filth, banality, mystery, hints, poetry, laughter, politicking, battle, subtle magic and death: lots and lots of death. And not just figurative character deaths, but brutal and literal character deaths. Through each chapter from a different person’s perspective, you will watch them interact with this finely woven world-tapestry of things right in front of them and inches away and either watch them change in the process … or wink out entirely. That is what A Song of Ice and Fire is: at least from my own understanding.

What amazes me, however, is not only how Martin can turn a phrase but also how he is able to keep so many details straight–large and small–and make his narrative more intricate, interlocking, and flexible than a Maester’s chain. I sometimes feel like I have to go to a Citadel of my own to get everything straight but his world stretches out so beautifully even with all the horror: and this is not counting the terrifying supernatural menace here either. It does make me despair of the humans in Westeros and that whole world sometimes: just as it sometimes intimidates me as a reader and especially as a writer. I wonder just how Martin is going to resolve all of this.

I could go on somewhat off-tangent to talk about the shamanic element in Daenerys Targaryen and Bran Stark’s journeys, but I might save that for another post. I will however say one thing. The real reason it took me so long to create another post on here was because I was reading George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas: stories that take place approximately a hundred years before his main saga.

I didn’t know if I would like them, but I did. A Song of Ice and Fire is full of intrigue, manipulation, treachery, and politicking–known fondly as “the game of thrones”–but the Dunk and Egg stories look at a hedge knight and his strange squire wandering Martin’s multi-layered world and bringing almost a … purity or simple wonderment to another otherwise dark yet beautiful place.

Now I think I will end this long post with a quote from one of the books. It encompasses everything I feel when I read good literature: especially from a genius like George R.R. Martin.

Martin states, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies … The man who never reads lives only once.” If you want to know the context of this quote or indeed of a lot of the things I just said, read the series. You will not be disappointed. I’ve already lived quite a few lives in various forms in the saga of Ice and Fire. I expect there will be more before this is all said and done.

Showing and Telling, Ambiguity and Obscurity: Or Author What the Hell is Going On?

August 27, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

So I’ve joined a Creative Writing group and I’ve so far gone to my second session of it. It’s actually been a long while since I’ve gone to a Writing group and it’s about time. It also seems we are all learning as we’re going along.

One thing I’m finding, which is both really weird and really interesting, is how Creative Writing advice can be applied “wrong.” I’m talking about something I find in my own stories and writing in particular. For instance, anyone who has ever written anything has probably one time or another clenched their teeth against that age-old cliche and absolute “Show us, don’t tell us.” It’s easy to say, but it is not always something that you can do. One time, I wrote a story as if I were “telling” it just out of pure creative spite. I could even tell you stories about how many times “Show us, don’t tell us” has been told to me, but that would just be boring.

Instead, I’ll tell you how–over the years–this advice helped me and how I haven’t always applied it well. It forced me to stop info-dumping. You know, explaining every single little thing to the point of ridiculousness. I learned to have all that information in the back of my head or–better yet–written down on various sheets of paper for consultations depending on what kind of story I was making.

So I would write things and slowly reveal the information. I even toyed with vague descriptive sentences that played with the seeming of things: especially in paranormal settings. Unfortunately, that is where I went wrong a lot of the time. You see, I was so focused on making a surface of a complex thing that a lot of that complexity was either lost or obscured. My problem was that the line between the ambiguous and the obscure blurred for me. Being ambiguous means that you leave something open, but it’s clear that it’s open whereas being obscure is purposefully with-holding information and thinking that your readers will guess it through reading your work.

There is something to be said about writing clearly and concretely enough so that people know what is going on. I just take it for granted that my readers know what I’m talking about. I mean, granted again, I do write for a particular audience and I never thought I would be a bestseller–which I’m not–but everyone reads differently. There are always different interpretations of things and that is perfectly natural, but it makes it all the more important to write something clearly and concisely.

I tend to go into detail about some things and then skimp on detail in others that some readers might actually be interested in. I guess I show some things and do not show others, or I “tell” the things I should show. I don’t really know. I do know that there is a nice alchemical medium somewhere and that perceptual environment–the mind of the reader–can make all the difference.

Often though, it feels just like this:

And that is my workshop comment for today. I hope it was helpful. As for me, I have plenty of work I still need to do.

Frustration, Developments and Other Stories

August 11, 2012October 10, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

I’m trying to find the best way to phrase this because it’s been on my mind for a while.

As a lot of you–old and new readers alike–know, I’ve been improving and developing this Blog as I’ve gone along. I had a few ideas as to how I would add to it. Really, I had two ideas. The first was that I was going to take my Youtube Channel and create a Vlog. I’d seen some people do this before–such as FreakishLemon–and I wanted an excuse to be able to read some of my stories and opinions aloud and even talk to people about my plans.

It was–and is–a good idea. But there were two factors I didn’t know about until I actually got up the courage to try them out. The first is that while I discovered my Acer netbook can record video and audio with its camera, the transfer rate of said video from my computer to Youtube was something along the lines of 436 minutes. Now, I’m not good with numbers, but there is something really wrong with a five minute video taking over seven hours to upload onto a site that is designed to receive and play videos.

But all right. Fine, perhaps it was my wireless connection, or the quality of my camera. I discovered that Youtube has a recorder. So I used that. I made one video that was ok, but I wanted to do over again. So I attempted that and then … I got a disconnection error on the screen. I kept recording anyway: thinking that I just couldn’t see the camera and the video was playing anyway. I was wrong. The recording cut off right about the time the disconnection error on the camera feed began.

I spent a large amount of time trying to figure out why this was happening and why I couldn’t just upload my videos. It also didn’t help that before all of this I had been doing various retakes of the same video. You know: the one that never made it onto the Net. I researched these problems and partially confirmed some of my suspicions, but mostly it made me frustrated. You have to understand, I get frustrated with technology–very frustrated with technology–whose creators claim it is supposed to be simple to use but it really isn’t. And even barring that, if we follow Gaiman’s Second Rule I believe, we will have all the technology and science we’ve dreamed about in science-fiction but it won’t always work properly.

I wonder how many times holograms and communications channels would lag in Star Trek if that were the case. Or if Data had to reboot several times or freeze in mid-motion before doing anything else.

So I decided to put that on the back-burner for a while, and instead record some audio files of me reading my stories aloud: for the practice. I have a weird program on this Acer which won’t let me listen to the recording I made after I made it, but aside from that it recorded well. Of course I can’t put this onto Youtube because it is audio only. And so I thought I could put it on this WordPress: which I can … for a modest fee. Since I don’t have the money to actually pay for more space or an application on here, that plan is out of the works unless I find a remote audio upload program I can trust.

I also thought about changing the aesthetics of this site. I have a friend who is into graphic design and photography who offered to help me, but I seems that I can customize this site again … for a modest fee a year.

I mean, fair enough. My Blog is changing and may be evolving past the limits of that I wasn’t even aware existed. I want it to look more customized and to add different media onto it. I also wanted to have a once or twice a week Vlog tie-in: to get the Youtube community on this and get further feedback. But it seems that I am lacking money and, quite frankly, patience. I am not going to rely on a recording program that might decide to cut off on me on a whim and I am definitely not going to wait over seven hours for a video to upload.

I’m also thinking about reducing the amount of times I post on this Blog to once or twice a week as well. I need to focus more on my writing and make more posts to keep in reserve. It’s amazing to think that just a few months ago I was writing a Blog post a day or every two days spontaneously and on the spot. I do still have some ideas and when I get more I will be more than happy to share them.

Anyway, I hope by the time I post this I will have figured more things out and maybe by expressing some of this frustration, I can free up my head to do more constructive things. Because I think that is the most frustrating thing of all: spending a lot of this time on technical matters when all I want to do is write. I’m not ruling out the other options too, but things are really going to have to change before anything else.

Maybe these setbacks, in the end, are a good thing in their way: because now I know where the limits are and I can begin to find creative ways around them and work with what I have. One can only hope.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can solve any of these issues, my ears are open. Take care, awesome readers.

Just Write It: The Perils of World-Building

August 10, 2012August 7, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

When I was in Grad School, I studied the concept of mythic world-building as the focus of my Master’s Thesis. To study and work with archetypes to build a whole other kind of world–reflective of the one we live in–can be a very rewarding and even more time-consuming quest.

I was talking with an acquaintance of mine about world-building: about doing research, getting the details just right, figuring out how the laws that govern your world actually work, what events have happened before the main story, the various back-stories that have occurred before and essentially the entire works. It is a necessary process: whether you are trying to make a narrative copy of the world that exists around you or a whole new one that–let’s face it–has some basis in history or imaginings that have happened before.

However, too much world-building can cause problems. I know: that sounds really weird, doesn’t it? How can world-building cause a writer or a story problems? How can there be such a thing as too much?

Well, the answer is that there is. Earlier on, I said it was very time-consuming and it is. You can spend months and years creating a whole world and know the ins and outs of every rule and power that exists there. You can spend that time modifying it too and rewriting it: which is all very well and good until you ask yourself where the story is. You know: the spark or idea that made you so enthusiastic to make all of this to begin with.

Like I said, it can be fun to create your setting, but it isn’t fun when you get so bogged down with the details that you can’t write the story that you set out to make. I imagine that this happens a lot with novelists, but I know from experience that it can definitely happen to short story writers.

So now that I’ve stated the situations, what is my advice on the matter? Well, I’d say–just like I said to my friend–if you have a story you need to write, write it. Just write it. You can deal with details and and corrections later. You can expand on what you have. But if you don’t have anything and only notes, you do not have a story. If you have a crude story, it is still a story and you can build from there: like taking a cutting from a plant and putting it in water … or cloning a whole human being from a limb.

So really, before you get bogged down in too many notes, just write the damned thing: or a damned thing. Damned stories being interesting aside, you will thank yourself for doing this later.

Now, to follow my own advice.

Athena Bursting From the Brain: Or Dealing with the Habits of a Creative Mindset

August 7, 2012August 8, 2012 ~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

When you make things, do you ever have these moments where something just won’t get out of your head?

You know: there’s a story you know you should be working on, or an article that wants to be written, or some addition to a work you already have just can’t wait or you’re afraid that if do wait in adding it–or creating it–that you’ll soon forget what it was to begin with and it just won’t happen?

Well, since I’m writing about it I can tell you right now that I’ve had all of this happen to me: and more. Sometimes when I have something creative in my mind, it just uses up a significant portion of my memory or mind. It’s like downloading something large on your computer and it only has so much memory space left that can slow things down. That’s a pretty good analogy for being preoccupied with a creative project I think: albeit not perhaps the most positive image in the world.

To mix metaphors even more dangerously, I tend to call it my “autistic mode.” When there is something I’m working on or that I want to make manifest on paper or screen I tend to tune things out a lot. I’m always thinking about it and I have to concentrate on it. My patience can become virtually non-existent (mostly being invested into work or the idea I want to work on) and, as such, I don’t always take to interruptions well. Do not even get me started on telephones or other loud and sudden intrusive noises: you won’t like it after a while. I also tend to retreat a lot more into my natural introverted self and become more of a hermit with less inclination to socialize or make any small talk.

Then when you add to the fact that I have a certain degree of impatience with regards to just writing my work out the first time so I can move onto other things and struggle with some ridiculous perfectionism–of getting it close to being “right” the first time–and you have some of my behaviour during my creative process right there.

It isn’t always this way. Sometimes I can get myself into a calm mindset either right when I wake up or just before I go to bed late at night where things get clearer in my mind and they can actually “come out.” My “process” works even better if I’m just doing something spontaneous and the things in my head flow into place. That is a very nice place to be.

It gets more difficult if I’ve written some quotes that I have to keep in mind beforehand or if I’ve had notes from research. Stories that involve research tend to slow me down a little bit: because it does take time to figure things out and “get them right” in my head. Also, very formulaic mediums like comic book and script forms tend to slow me down a bit as well: though I know that once I complete them I have something very solid to work with. It’s just the journey of getting there that can take a while.

Like I said above, it is that fear of losing “the spark” or impetus in doing the work, or the idea itself that adds probably a lot of unnecessary stress to me. But that’s only part of it. I’ve also noticed that when I have a lot of different ideas that I want to work on simultaneously and I don’t know which to work on first, it can confuse me. I’m no Dr. Manhattan: I have to work with one body and one mind in three-dimensional space and time. It helps when I write down my ideas in note form and I focus on the one that really interests me or seems more imminent in coming.

I just almost always want to get something done now, though I know that’s not always realistic. I have to pace myself, sometimes wait for more details or information, and then move on. Another thing I also try to do is work on something else if the project I’m currently working on is becoming too frustrating.

The alternatives I’ve presented to deal with some of my creative habits and behaviour work with varying degrees of success. A lot of it is attitude and the idea that I need to “download” or finish certain ideas in my head before “making room for more.” I don’t think I will ever fully succeed in doing that and as that TED Lecture Elizabeth Gilbert made with regards to creativity states, some these things happen when they want to.

And sometimes it’s just like Athena: wanting to explode out of Zeus’ brain. Fun times.