Snow, my writing faults, and Miles Davis

It's a sunny Friday morning, after yet another bizarre snowy Thursday. Nothing as strange as snowflakes on a sunburn from the 87 degree Sunday before. I believe aliens are messing with our weather and don't try to talk me out of it!

I woke up with an unusual song in my head: Skid Marks on My Heart by the Go-Go's.

My fic is taking me longer than I had planned, so forgive me for making it seem like I'm drawing it out to torture people or to make a big fuss over myself. That isn't my intent. It's just that my beta editors have given me such useful and terrific suggestions that I would be an ungrateful wretch not to take the advice. Plus, the story is now improved. Um, plus 10,000 words longer. So it's back out for re-review.

I am trying to decide which is worse: not knowing one's writing faults, or knowing them and not being able to cure them. Well, okay, knowing them is probably better. And on the plus side, I know my strengths: I'm good with plot. I'm good with logic and organization. Sometimes, I'm good with dialog (but other times not).

But I have no subtlety. I'm bad at building an amorphous atmosphere and making gentle suggestions that someone like helenish excels at. My writing is rarely beautiful. And I'm absolutely terrible at filling in the richness of detail in talking head scenes. I know what the scene needs to have the characters say, but what do they do, how do they look, how can I show that? Hard.

I never get to write science that way. Scientific writing is full of repetition and dry facts. Nuance has no place in my scientific writing, so it's been drummed out of me.

I've allowed myself an indulgence in my fic, though -- I've included quotes to begin chapters and scenes. I pull them mostly from the music I've been listening to, music that catches my ear and makes me twist its words fit the fic. It's indulgent, and I will keep them regardless, because I know they'll provide a touchstone for me as I look back on this time in my life. I know they won't mean as much to the reader. Sorry. Consider it my in-lieu-of-payment for writing. :)

I've been into heavy music listening. For me, music provides a compelling link to time, one that I've noticed over many years. For example, I'm listening to Miles Davis right now, which reminds me of a period in the 1980's when I listened to mostly jazz, almost constantly. In fact, I saw Miles live at Red Rocks amphitheater during that time (An odd concert, actually. He had absolutely no connection with his audience. In fact, he played with his back to us for most of the evening, as though to say, "I'm Miles Davis. Isn't that good enough? I don't need to entertain you more than this music I'm playing.")

Today is my daughter's last day of public school education. She's such a straight arrow. She's never skipped a day of class in her life, and she's going to do it for English today -- but she talked to the teacher ahead of time so he'd not be offended!

When I graduated high school, the two big current songs were School's Out and I'm Eighteen by Alice Cooper. Oh, and We've Only Just Begun by the Carpenters.

C'mon, you do it too, right? I mean, if I start up Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow," do you think of Bill Clinton, too?

And do you know the rest of this lyric? "Gimme an 'F', gimme a 'U'..."

I'd be so intelligent if I'd devoted half the brain cells to useful things as I have storing all the lyrics to every song from the 1960's and beyond.

"We can act if we want to. If we don't nobody will.
And you can act real rude and totally removed, and I can act like an imbecile."