Drive On, Worker Bee

People are like cars. Some are newer, sportier models, zipping down the street, engines freshly oiled and cranked for speed. Some are reliable sedans or mini-vans. They get where they’re going. Some are older models that have weathered many storms, but are in need of an oil change every now and then.

(Where is she going with this? I hear you whispering.)

Lately, I’ve felt like the old model slowly making its way on the road, while the newer models zip around me, heading toward opportunities beckoning toward them that older models seem denied.

Of course, that’s a matter of perception. But man, I’ve felt beaten down lately.

Recently, I received this badge in the mail:

I have to thank Andy of City Jackdaw for it. He told me that the worker bee is the symbol of Manchester—a reminder of its industrial past. But it’s also a reminder of their resilience in the wake of the May 22 bombing at the Manchester Arena.

I needed this reminder, as I consider my life. Worker bee? Check. I’m happiest when I’m working on something. Resilience? Why do I always forget how necessary that is? Haven’t I lived long enough to know that you have to persevere through hard times? Rejections, money issues, writer’s block, loud neighbors, illness, the death of a loved one (I’ve experienced all of the above recently), breakups—they pop up like potholes here and there on the road of life. It’s our choice whether to stall out or drive on—to persevere through them.

   

I’m grateful for friends who prayed for me and encouraged me through this dry season, where I’ve felt trapped in a canyon surrounded by walls of doubt; a place where I can barely write even a grocery list. Words fail me. This too shall pass, they say.

I’m suddenly reminded of some lines from Peter Pan—“second [star] to the right and straight on till morning.” Sounds like driving directions to me. I know you can’t get to Neverland by car. You need pixie dust for that. But I can return to a state of wonder—a place I see just over the horizon—if I keep on driving.

Have you felt stuck in a canyon lately? What did you do to climb out and keep going?

Photos by L. Marie. Cutie Cars by Moose Toys.

Sheer Delight

What do you find delightful? A couple of weeks ago a friend told me what delighted her: the Disney Fairies movies.

“You should watch them,” she suggested.

I wasn’t too keen on the idea, believing that only girls three to six would take an interest in them. I couldn’t help recalling some of the Barbie videos I sat through multiple times while babysitting a little girl. (She insisted on watching the same movie over and over.)

Anyway, my friend talked me into watching Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Never Beast—a 2014 film she’d watched with her daughter. It’s part of the fairies series that centers on Tinker Bell, the character from J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan/Peter and Wendy, who became iconic because of the 1953 Disney movie, Peter Pan, and her place as Disney’s mascot. But there are other fairies as well.

Having seen the play and read the book, I can say categorically that Tinker Bell was never one of my favorite characters, though she is way more interesting than Wendy. My interest, however, wanes in stories where one person is jealous of another person because they both want to be loved by the same person. So the thought of watching a series where jealous Tinker Bell is the main character failed to fill me with delight. But because I trust this friend’s opinion, I bit the bullet.

 

She was right. Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Never Beast was delightful. I also realized that I’d fallen into the jaded adult trap with my presumption that I would fail to find enjoyment in a product intended for three- to six-year-old children. And I call myself a writer of books for children? Shame on me for trying to avoid a product many kids (and parents) love.

The title of the movie is a bit of a misnomer, since another character figures heavily in the action. (And I don’t mean Peter Pan.) But since this post is not a movie review per se, I’ll move on to why it delighted me.

Delight is one of those subjective terms that are hard to quantify. After watching the above film and another—Tinker Bell, the 2008 origin story of Tinker Bell—I tried to figure out why I was so taken with these Disney Fairies movies. The animation? The idea of fairies taking care of plants and animals or inventing labor-saving gadgets? The world building in general? Probably a combination of all three. Whenever I feel stressed, as I have lately, watching a show or movie with lots of beautiful forests and flowers; cuddly, friendly animals; and well-rounded characters who blow it badly and have to make good relaxes me. But I’m especially delighted in the premise that a fairy is born because of a sound of delight—the first time a baby laughs. Little world-building details like that help ensure that I’ll be pleased with the result.

Fairy tales/folk tales have always delighted me. Journeying through a book or a movie to a world where dragons or fairies exist always makes me giddy. Even if horrible things happen, the whimsy of the world keeps me glued to the pages or to the screen.

Another film I find extremely delightful is Iron Monkey, a 1993 film directed by Yuen Wo Ping. I have the Quentin Tarantino Presents version on DVD. This is a Robin Hood-kind of story—a fictional account from the childhood of a real person: Wong Fei-hung, a martial artist and physician. Obviously this film is very different from the Disney Fairies. 🙂 But it has a similarity in that it is the fantastical story of an iconic character and one in the making. I appreciate the beauty and skill of the fight choreography. Martial artists defy gravity as they battle each other. And the Iron Monkey’s determination to help the oppressed poor makes me cheer. (Warning to any newbies: this film is violent. If you are unused to martial arts films from China, you might skip this one. I grew up watching these films.)

  

I don’t expect everyone to share my delight. But I’m sure something delights you. If so, what? While you think about that, I hope this post by Penny O’Neill over at the Life on the Cutoff blog delights you as it delighted me: https://lifeonthecutoff.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/an-occurrence/

Then feel free to come back and walk among the flowers in the garden where I live.

Iron Monkey image from qavobrae.livejournal.com. Yu Rong Guang as Iron Monkey from movies.film-cine.com. Tinker Bell posters from aceshowbiz.com and tclnews.blogspot.com. Disney fairies from fanpop. Pixie Hollow image from disneysonlineworlds.com. Flower photos by L. Marie.

A Writer’s Process (7)

With me today on the blog is the incomparable Ingrid Sundberg, who is—say it with me—another friend from VCFA. You might know her through her blog, Ingrid’s Notes, her website, or Twitter.

El Space: Please share four quick facts about yourself.
Ingrid: I’ve dyed my hair every color of the rainbow and shaved my head once. I love to draw silly monsters, particularly ones with horns and polka-dots. My favorite TV show is Battlestar Galactica. I grew up on an island in Maine.

El Space: Cool! Now, let’s get to your work in progress. A brief synopsis, please.
Ingrid: The Nevers is a YA steampunk reimagining of Peter Pan. There’s no magic, and Peter and Hook are the heads of rival gangs that sell a hallucinogenic drug known as Fairy Dust. Wini Darling, the daughter of a bank mogul, is lured into the whimsical and artistic world of the Nevers, a secret underground artist community, in order to help her drug-addicted brother who’s been captured by pirates. Only it’s not so easy to find her brother and leave the Nevers as she thinks.

Wini finds herself intoxicated by the no-rules artist culture of the Nevers and simultaneously mixed up in a street war between the pirates and the Lost Boys. And then there’s that thrill-seeking, drunk-on-life Peter fellow who’s got one hell of a sweet spot for Wini Darling. Sometimes, not growing up can be a dangerous adventure.

El Space: Wow! Sounds awesome! What’s challenging or exhilarating about working on this story?
Ingrid: It’s really exciting to work with pre-existing material. I get to reinterpret Peter Pan with the themes that excite me. I’ve also been having lots of fun thinking up creative ways to reference the original story while still inventing my own world. There’s a great creative energy in this process. Of course, staying too true to the original material can also be a trap. I’ve had to keep giving myself permission to deviate from the original story when I need to.

The biggest challenge for me is world building, and the sheer size of this project. In the past I’ve written small, intimate contemporary stories. Suddenly, I have a whole world to invent, rules and politics to create, and an ensemble of over a dozen characters to develop. Dang!

El Space: A great challenge. You’re an author-illustrator-screenwriter. How does your novel reflect your cinematic experience?
Ingrid: I enter all of my stories visually. I see images before I see whole scenes. Those can be anything from a wisp of hair to a dramatic landscape. I always have to start with that image and then look around and see where I am and who’s in the scene.

Imagery has also really helped with world building. I have a huge photo file for this book and have been creating character and setting collages. These help me to imagine costumes, character traits, and details in a setting.

It’s interesting to see how characters will have a color palette, or how specific details will tell me about their moods. I’ve even begun to create image systems and metaphor motifs based on these collages. I have a whole secret Pinterest page dedicated to this with 35 different boards.

Here’s an example of some of my collages:

The Jolly Roger

Mermaids

Lagoon

El Space: They’re gorgeous! What other tools were helpful as you determined the scope of your world?
Ingrid: In The Anatomy of Story, John Truby talks about having a single arena for your story. He says that the smaller your arena, the stronger the story will be, because it will have a single “unity of place.” It turns out my book has two arenas, but they’re linked together because one hides within the other. So it’s helped me to think about developing those two arenas to their full potential and not venturing outside of them.

The other idea that I’ve thought about lately is the metaphorical meaning and thematic significance of each arena. For example, Neverland is supposed to be an imaginary utopia of playfulness and wonder. It’s an island that separates itself from the real world and is outside of time. So I’ve been asking myself how I will design a landscape that enhances the wonder and keeps that magical sense of exclusivity. Meanwhile, I have to contrast that with the tick-tock of the “real world” that is inevitably heading towards old age and death.

El Space: What books have you read recently with impressive world building?
Ingrid: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor blew me away with its world building. Everything was very specific and it had a history.

It didn’t feel like it stood on the shoulders of what others had previously invented. It had a unique and compelling world of its own. It had depth and weight to it. Every detail seemed intricately woven into the whole. I saw Laini Taylor speak about this book at a signing and she mentioned that she read a lot of folklore while writing the book. She said that every culture invents its own folklore, and you can tell a lot about a culture’s values by the stories they tell themselves. Plus, Laini Taylor has pink hair, so she must be brilliant!

El Space: I think so too! So, what excites you about the steampunk genre?
Ingrid: Honestly, I don’t know a lot about steampunk. I’m learning as I go. But I think I’m visually excited about a steampunk world. I’m obsessed with the textures of it. I love the precision of intricately woven clockwork, or the allure of emerald-colored goggles. Oh, and the fashion! Can you really get enough of velvet top hats and triple-buckled boots? This world is a smorgasbord of delicious imagery that allows me to really play with language!

El Space: Love the fashions! Now, what’s the best writing advice you’ve received recently?
Ingrid: I often get overwhelmed by the scope of this project. The best advice I got recently was to imagine a picture frame, and to only look at what’s inside that frame. Forget about the rest of the world. Focus on what I can see inside that small box of space. Write about that. Then look in a new picture frame and write about that. It’s really helped me to focus on small pieces, which amazingly seem to find their own way of linking together.

Thanks, Ingrid, for sharing your process and your collages. If you have questions for Ingrid, you know what to do: please comment below!

Laini Taylor author photo, book cover, and Peter Pan cover from Goodreads. Truby cover from macmillan.com. All other photos are courtesy of Ingrid Sundberg.