Story Ideas (Part II)

"The Moving Crew"

A family moves from a small town to a bigger city. Although they're family, they are strangers. Told from the point-of-view of someone who married in, not related by blood.

 

"Nine Wives"

A new twist on the "Six Wives of Henry VIII". A monarch falls in and out of love with women all the time. He honestly believes he's doing them a favor. One by one, the wives are discarded, and one by one, they join forces to take them down, some from beyond the grave.

 

"Road Sage"

A self-proclaimed 'road sage' travels from town to town and city to city, and meets interesting people along the way. He touches their lives in ways no one expects, and vice versa.

 

"Worlds in Miniature"

What happens when a politician, a truck driver, a high-powered executive, a sassy waitress, and a homeless man are mini-sized and forced to co-exist in a dollhouse?

 

"Pun Intended"

A stand-up comic goes too far during his routine and is blacklisted from the Vegas Strip. 

 

Story Ideas (Part I)

Old story ideas that never went anywhere:

 

"Cheesestick Conundrum"

A waitress at a chain restaurant tells the story about a former regular who comes in only for the friend mozzarella cheesesticks, marinara sauce and a glass of sparkling wine, Why the cheesestick obsession? Who's the weird customer? 

 

"Living Cheap"

Meet Olivia Hartford Cheap. She's a kindergarten teacher who loves her job. She's married to her husband Jonathan, but feels disconnected from him and his high-powered job as a stockbroker. They are very different personality-wise. Jonathan, according to her, lives up to his namesake. "He's so cheap, his shoes squeak when he walks." Can this unlikely partnerhood be saved?

 

"Four Corners of the World"

Tahra lives in a small village, comrpised of homes and shops surrounding a village square. Every day, she runs errands and meets the townspeople. One man, in particular, catches her interest. He had left the village as a young man, experienced the world, then returned to live out the rest of his days. Tahra spends time listening to his stories, despite his admonitions to 'mind the present'. Following his advice, she ventures out, little by little, further from the town square. She finds the exotic and the new is embedded in the ordinary.

 

"Sitting in a Blue Window"

Maya Lipski had everything to live for: a wonderful job offer, a new hometown, and a man who loved her. Then an automobile accident changes everything forever...

She finds herself in her version of Heaven: in a huge library, where the past, present and future are open to her. She finds herself looking at parts of her life and possible futures. An insidious danger threatens the library and the fates of her loved ones on Earth. Maya must risk her own existence to save all she treasures.

 

Does Writing Age Like a Fine Wine?

I've spent the weekend digging through my old writing notebooks, some dating back more than 10 years. I'm amazed at all the writing I've done that I've long forgotten about. At the time, I just dashed off these little poetry/short story snippets without too much thought. Words scribbled between teaching classes, grading papers at the local coffeehouse, and waiting for the city bus at the stop. The years of my student teaching were grueling, with hardly any time to breathe. (the first one was in languages/ESL for undergrad. The second was in a 5th grade classroom, all subjects for masters). Writing was a necessary outlet to preserve my sanity.


As I look back at these pages, I can remember the circumstances of each piece. My health has always been up-and-down, with constant infections and other problems. It wasn't until I was formally diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2006 that many of the incidents made sense. This poem was written on June 1, 2001:

The pain makes me tremble.

It pierces with dull blades

Sharp when water flows.

It burns my blood.

When my mind is clouded,

my body becomes a rod

attracting all kids of thoughts.

My back feels heavy,

my legs sting.

The hornets hide in every crevice

And poke with awful sting.

My soul stands up against it,

saying, "No, you don't,

Not this time."

But the shell I occupy

turns traitor.

And I crumble with little strength.

I rebel against my fate

And bear the agony alone,

Hiding the ashes within my throat,

Withering slowly within my heart.

---RAD 6/1/01

I'm amazed at how relevant those feelings are to me, nearly ten years later, and how powerful they remind me of that time of my life. Here's another one, written the same year, when I was angry at my husband. We'd been married 5 years at this point:

An idiot

knows he's an idiot.

A smart idiot

bites his tongue

till it bleeds.

But a genius idiot

dies a death

of a cold hell

where he rambles on

to an audience of one:

himself.

---RAD 7/16/01

Again, I'm struck at the relevance of this poem at the time and now. This was before we had our children, and two of our three children's diagnosis of moderate/severe autism. It wasn't until much later that I realized my husband had all the signs of Aspberger's Syndrome (high-functioning autism), which includes brilliance in certain areas (in his case, computers), but difficulty in relating to others' thoughts and feelings.

I'll close with one more short poem, about trying to find who you are.

Finding yourself in a mirror,

is such an easy thing to do.

Your image warped

beyond recognition.

Good in place of evil---

Perfect lines blurred.

Yet which one is the right one?

The crisp reflection of everyday life?

Or the shadows hidden within?

---RAD 3/11/00

Writers, when you look at your old manuscripts, what do you see? Can you remember the time and place when you wrote it? Can you remember how you felt at the time? Look back, you'd be surprised.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Language, Writing and Art Entwined

Whenever I can, I like to incorporate my various interests in my writing and art. One of my main hobbies is languages. I originally trained as a foreign language/English as a second language teacher in college. I love the sounds, the complexity of grammar, how semantics can change a spoken or written word, and how body language conveys messages on its own.

I think that's why I enjoy writing science fiction and fantasy. I can build my own worlds and make up their cultures and languages. Sometimes they are based on Earth peoples and places, other times they sound truly alien. I can draw on my experience as a linguist, teacher and artist to make my stories unique and believable.

Language can be a basis for art too. I'm currently studying Japanese, and brushing up on my Mandarin Chinese. My family history is from Southeast Asia, so it's also a link to my own cultural roots. Here are some examples of how I combine 3 of my loves: foreign language, writing and art.

Marumochi, Japanese rice cakes. The word is written in hiragana and kanji (two of the three writing systems in Japanese.

 Sakura, cherry blossom. The word is written on the right (and vertically) in hiragana.


 These two are Chinese calligraphy, yellow acrylic on a red acrylic background.  The character on the left is Ming, "bright", which consists of the characters for the sun and the moon. Makes sense, in a way, especially once you see the characters side by side to understand the meaning.

   The one on the right is Fu,  "happiness". This one's a bit more abstract. On the right side are the symbols meaning "to fill" (which consist of the symbols for "one", "mouth" and "field"), joined with the symbol for "heaven" on the left. To be filled with bounty from the rice field, sent from heaven equals happiness.

Language, writing and art are interconnected in many ways. I really enjoy incorporating the three in many different ways and in many different mediums. Fiction. prose, poetry, collage and art all tell a different story for different people. What does it tell you?

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

What Do my Characters Look Like?

When I start a story project, one of my first questions is, What does my protagonist look like? What does my antagonist look like?Words paint a picture for the reader. "The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, even with the three-inch heels." "He tied his long hair back in a ponytail, making sure it was safely out of the way." "I could imagine him twirling the ends of his mustache like some bad Frenchman in an awful dime store romance novel." Show your reader through their movements (twirling the mustache), comparison (much shorter than he is, even with the heels) or action (tying his long hair back in a ponytail).


I am a visual person and sometimes I have a hard time imagining the character in my mind's eye. A fellow author I know bases his characters' likenesses on actors and actresses, past and present. It gives him a base to build his characters, a guide on how they react to other characters, and a general idea on their personalities. My approach is a bit different from his: as a visual artist, I sketch, draw, paint who I see for the character. Use the approach that is most helpful for your writing.


Here are some examples (all artwork copyright 2010 by A. Dameron):

Holly, a character from

my sci-fi story, "First Duty."

Ramon the Scribe from "The Eye of the Falcon"

Magadalena from "Cantadora"

                                                                                                                                            

 Isabel and Morena "Cantadora"

                                                                                  

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

And the Stories You'll Write! (Part III of III)

Now that you have ideas and characters, when will you ever find the time to jot anything down?!


Here's how my summer days usually run (and this is subject to a lot of changes):


6:30 AM Kids get rowdy, time to get up.


6:45 AM Coffee, prepare Christina's snack and backpack for summer school


6:45 AM Michael comes downstairs, messes w/my laptop. Anything not saved is lost. And yes, I locked my keyboard, but he yanks the power.


6:45 AM Baby Sarah demands breakfast, usually cereal. Also breakfast for everyone else.
(reboot laptop,unlock keyboard, retrieve the last saved thing I wrote, jot down a word or two, save)


7:00 AM Time to change Christina out of jammies. Involves chasing her down, trying to clothe a wriggling body, tangled hair and all.
(unlock keyboard, jot down half a paragraph. Maybe)


7:10 AM Change/clothe Michael and Sarah


7:20 AM Bus comes to the door, about 10 minutes late, but on time for us. Hustle Christina and her backpack out to bus, kiss her goodbye.


7:22 AM Return to find laptop messed with again. Reboot 2nd time, unlock keyboard, retrieve saved manuscript. Put on Wiggles DVD, maybe 15 minutes uninterrupted time to check E-mail, Twitter,Facebook, etc.


7:30 AM Not quite 8 minutes, phone call. Is Mum friend who needs to vent about hubby, kids, life in general. Extricate myself from conversation, using  Baby Sarah's toxic diaper as excuse. Find laptop needs 3rd reboot. Lost e-mail reply, have to redo. Multiple windows open on laptop by this time.


And this isn't an hour into my day. Try writing with 3 kids in tow, but my point is: even if it's a few words, a paragraph...I squeeze in writing whenever I can. Even in a hectic schedule like mine, those few words add up over a while. The couple of lines while waiting in the pediatrician's office, while the kids have lunch, and during playgroups. And away from the keyboard, I'm constantly rewriting, editing, dreaming up plots in my head.


Take everything you see in your life, people you see, places you go to every day, and write, even when life seems to interrupt your "writing time". Be persistent, and most of all, be flexible. And you'll see the little pieces add up after a short time.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Ah, the People You'll Meet (Part II of III)

Sometimes a chance encounter will spark an idea for a character or two. You could be standing in the lunch line in the cafeteria or at the grocery store. You  could be walking around the Mall or the track. Each person brings his or her own story and perhaps you might hear a little bit of it.


Yesterday, I met a gentleman at the used bookstore. His brother ran the store, and he was visiting from Daytona Beach, Florida. As I put the kids in the van, he told me that he and his companion had enjoyed their stay in Charlotte over the 4th of July weekend. He asked me where I was from (and I get that question a lot). My parents are from the Philippines, but I was born in England, married to a Southerner and mum to 3 kids. When I mentioned the Philippines, he immediately told me the story of his cousin, who married a mail-order bride from the Philippines in the 40's after World War II. He introduced me to his companion, who was originally from Alaska.


She seemed to be a nice lady, with the weathered brown skin of an Aleutian Eskimo and pretty dark eyes. She complimented me on how my son and baby daughter were so beautiful. She told me that she and her companion had been together for 28 years (not married, said the man, just together) and that they were on their way back to Daytona Beach. We didn't talk long in the hot sun, but the couple made a definite impression on me. I had all kinds of questions I didn't have the time to ask: What was he doing in Alaska? How did the two meet?  What was it about him, that she would leave Alaska for Florida? Did they have any children or grandchildren? Were they retired in Florida? What were the stories of their youth?


The spark for a story. Look around at the people around you, ask questions and listen to their answers. Or answer those questions yourself, make up a background or personal history. Pretend that two of them met in a certain setting and have them interact. What happens?


The places you go, the people you meet...

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Stories from the Hairdresser, the Coffee Shop and Other Places

Yeah, I finally got around to cutting my hair today. I chopped off about 4 inches worth. The hairdresser asked me, "Are you sure you want to cut so much off?" I said, "North Carolina summer. It'll grow back in time for winter." So yeah, shoulder length and layered. MUCH cooler and easier to take care of. With 3 kids, I don't have time to fuss with my hair. Grunge Mum 101.


We chatted while she did my hair about everything. Busy times/slack times in the hair salon (high times: prom, Easter, Christmas, weddings. Low times: NASCAR races at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Seriously. Everyone's at the track. No one can park at the Mall.) Interesting clients. Learned a lot about daily life as a hair dresser. Kids bouncing on mattresses and dancing to Spongebob and the Wiggles.


Filed the info away under "Possible character". Even while I'm getting 4 inches lopped off at the salon, I' m still watching and listening. Yeah, the writer in me is always on the lookout for possible inspiration from real life. They say that sometimes Real Life is stranger than Fiction, and that's absolutely true. Real Life can inspire fiction. Being a writer requires you to watch and listen...you never know who or what will inspire an story.


Coffee houses are also good places to find writing sparks. My favorite place is called Jackson's Java, an independent coffee place just down the road from UNC Charlotte. It's a college hangout, and during the year, all sorts of people drop by. I'll jot notes to myself in my notebook and maybe do a quick sketch or two of a cool set of teacups they have on sale, or maybe a bottle of coffee flavoring.


Just watch, listen and find inspiration for your writing. It'll come from the most unexpected places.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

A Resource for Making Up your Own Languages

Thanks to several good linguist friends of mine, I found this site, called The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder. If you are a science-fiction or fantasy writer, or if you were curious as to how language works (both natural and "unnatural"--note, not "foreign"), check out this site.


In my sci-fi/fantasy stories, I tend to do a lot of "world building", i.e. make up a completely new culture, language, people, etc. that my protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) meet and interact with. Sometimes, I base my ideas on a mix of existing cultures, a melting pot of sights, smells and sounds. Other times, I make it up on the spur of the moment, especially if it's only a one-time example. It takes a lot of effort to make an alien culture seem really "alien", as opposed to just "humans with googly eyes and antennae" (as a fellow writer friend puts it). But we as writers are human, so we end up giving our different cultures a mirror of  own morals, viewpoints and attitudes. The outsiders looking into our Human existence (Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land comes to mind). It makes for good conflict and a good story.


My academic background is languages, linguistics and teaching English as a Second Language. One of the "rules of writing" is "Write about what you know." So it isn't surprising that language plays a part of my writing. I've been a fan of Star Trek for a long time and two of my favorite characters are Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (the Original Series) and Ensign Hoshi Sato (Enterprise). Both are linguists, teachers and communications officers. Their job was to make sense of the unknown, to share culture and extend the hand of friendship.


Interesting how art imitates real life, and vice versa.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Art and Writing: A Collage of the Mind

I was very fortunate to meet a wonderful group of women at a "retreat" in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2005. Nine lovely women met at a cabin in the mountains, and we spent time laughing, eating, drinking and sharing our dreams. We found common ground, despite nine different backgrounds. It was a heady time. We visited new restaurants in downtown Asheville, sought shelter in a bar from a sudden downpour, played board games in our pajamas. I was pregnant with my older daughter at the time and was full of hopes and dreams.

One of our activities was collage-making. We searched through magazines and cut pictures and words that described our dreams. Here are two of mine: the one on the top has the theme, "What are you Waiting For: Oh, the Possibilities". It shows some of my "true colors" of my personality. Jewelry-maker, Virginia Tech alumna, chocoholic, musician, reader.  These are the facets of me.

The page on the bottom is a "Glimpse of the Future". A trip to the Pacific Rim, Healing of Body and Soul, triumph over depression, and flying straight and true like an arrow from a bow. (My zodiac sign happens to be Sagittarius.)

Try collaging and see what you come up with. You just might be surprised.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Journals as a Window to Other Worlds

Right now, I'm reading "Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters" edited by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley. It's a collection of letters that the creator of Sherlock Holmes wrote to his mother, Mary Conan. He began writing to her during his boyhood in a Jesuit school and kept on until her death in 1920. The first two authors are members of the Baker Street Irregulars (a society devoted to Sherlock Holmes) and Charles Foley is Arthur C. Doyle's grand-nephew.


His world (late 19th-early 20th century Europe) is a different world from ours. He brought a lot of real-life aspects to his writing. His worst subject was mathematics, so he made Holmes's arch-nemesis, James Moriarty, a mathematician by training. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and so made Doctor James H. Watson a doctor. Doyle was horrible at dating his letters (not to mention organizing them and punctuating them), and Watson's chronicles were also written in the same haphazard way. Doyle also mentioned his idols (Poe's short stories inspired Holmes's serial adventures) and even mentioned some of his critics' early reviews of his work.


They say that art imitates life and that's true, especially about writers. "Write what you know." Journals can give you an insight into a writer's mind and into what influenced him/her to write about what they did. They write about their worlds from their unique points of view. Many casual diarists don't consider their lives special, but to an outsider, looking in, each entry reveals a little more about that life that I might not have known about.


I have a whole shelf full of journals written by various people. The Journals of Lewis and Clark. The Diary of Anne Frank (both "A Diary of a Young Girl" and a 1956 British copy inherited from my godmother), Zlata's Diary (of a girl living through the Balkan war), and A World War II Diary 1941-45 (of a U.S. Navy Sailor stationed on a destroyer in the Pacific). I also have a copy of a fictional journal of a girl in the Middle Ages, Catherine, called Birdie (2 copies, in English and Spanish). Call it a habit, but I've always been fascinated by other's journals.
I started my own journal when I was 8, in regular spiral-bound school notebooks. Then I switched to hard-bound journal books when I got married. Each book's cover reflects something going on at that time of my life. So far, I have 18 hard-bound books in a box in my closet. And I still write when I can.


Do you keep a journal? How often do you write in it and what do you write about? A friend of mine describes his as "The Life, The Universe and Everything" (with apologies to Douglas Adams). How special is it to you?

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

What If...? (or Three Hobbits and a TARDIS)

"What if?" is my favorite question. Not "Why? or How?" or "What For?" It sparks a story idea, it presents possibilities when I get stuck on a plot, it fires up the creative juices.  Sometimes the most outrageous stories come out of those writing sessions, but that's all right. Creativity is rarely on the straight and narrow. As a friend of mine likes to say, "If you ain't outrageous, if you don't question, you ain't living."


Like:
1) What if Frodo and the Hobbits found Doctor Who's TARDIS? Could they even reach the control panel? What happened to the Doctor (choose your incarnation here)? Could they just whisk off to Mount Doom or will there be other misadventures along the way?


2) What if Jack the Ripper came back in the 31st century? Technology's advanced by this time, so would he use a different modus operanti in his murders? Or would he stick with the tried and true, 19th century style? Was he frozen in cryostasis? Is Scotland Yard (or the 31st c. equivalent) still pursuing him, or someone different?


3) What if present-day Earth became a utopia? How would the people live? Is it violence-free, disease-free, poverty-free? How could such a society exist and maintain itself? Or is there something darker under the surface (Like Orwell's "Animal Farm" or "1984'?)


4) What if the London Underground/New York Transit System/BART got stuck? Or if certain hidden tunnels were secret passages to different worlds? Or maybe a train driver/conductor/worker finds a long-lost treasure deep underground?  Maybe there are really mutant sewer rats or alligators down there?


5) What if no one could speak? How could anyone communicate with each other? Sign language? Writing? Body language? 

That sort of thing.Sometimes the most outrageous stories comes out of those sessions.  But that's all right.

Hmm...what if?

Ask yourself..."What if...?" and maybe it'll take you on a writing journey you didn't expect.

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

"Eureka!" she yelled in the bathtub...

I've got several fanfics and other things going on at once. I know that these times are usually pretty busy, with multiple windows open on the computer and plot threads all over the place. My Muse picks this time to pack up and go to Bermuda, and I can rarely convince Her to come back until she's damn good and ready.


But She left me a some ideas before she left. Now I have a good idea of how to write my "5 + 1" fic (which is a short fiction piece with 5 times an event happened and 1 time it didn't. Like "5 times [insert character here] cheated death and the 1 time [he/she] bit the dust.) and how to continue another story that I was stuck on. Eureka! moments never happen for me when I'm at the computer, of course. It's when I'm trying to get off a busy exit on I-85 or trying to keep my son from opening every box in the pantry or sitting with my younger daughter with her Legos.


And most times, it's when I don't have anything to write on or write with. I've taken to lugging a notebook and a pen with me wherever I go. If I don't write it down, I lose it. My brain functions that way.


How do ideas come to you? and how do you "capture" or remember them?

All writing and art copyright A. Dameron 2000-2010

Some archaeological digging in the files

I have a box of old sketchbooks in my closet that have all kinds of old snippets, poetry, etc. In my first few years of marriage, I'd carry a hard-backed sketchbook around with me and squeezed in writing whenever I could. No two books are the same...the only thing they had in common was the fact they were unlined. I guess my mind doesn't function very well in between lines. Even when I was a teacher, I could never write in a straight line. My students always snickered at my loopy instructions on the blackboard. I'm left handed too, so smudge galore. There were a few times when I flipped the book the other way (opens right to left...think Japanese manga books) to make it easier for me to write.


Yeah, I've never really been one for traditional. Sue me. LOL!


Anyway, there's a ton of old ideas, half-baked thoughts, sketches and other stuff buried in there. I've been looking through them and picking out some of the more interesting stuff, which I'll get around to posting eventually. Funny how your view changes after ten years or so.


In other news, writing fanfic and updating my art gallery. I really need more time in the day to get everything done, but I'm a mum! Impossible is my middle name! LOL! Some fantasy stuff in the works...plans revealed very soon.


Off for more writing, as long as my migraine allows me.


Annie