2/5/11–

This week, I studied story–personal narratives, how stories shape our lives, how we tell them. Sounds like I might be taking a creative writing course, right?

No. Doctoral level nursing Theory Development.

Huh?

Yeah. Theory Development. Sounds like a real snooze-fest, but it’s actually just about the best class I’ve ever taken.

It turns out nursing school is the greatest writing education I could have ever hoped for. Nursing has taught me about the human experience, the human body, and how humans respond to all sorts of situations–from birth to death, and everything in between. It’s taught me about modern science and medicine, cultural differences, traditional healing, spirituality, and how to interact with a wide variety of people. It’s taught me how to think in terms of parts and wholes simultaneously.

Plus, it’s given me many stories. Health, after all, is the story of our life–illness is a crisis and a transformative experience. As a nurse, you have to remember every day that a patient’s story started far before they came to your hospital bed–and will continue after. Even if the patient passes away, her story continues in the lives of her family and friends.

Oh, and you wouldn’t believe how many papers we have to write. Talk about honing the craft through practice…

But this post isn’t about nursing. It’s about story. Because here’s something I’ve fully realized this week, something that’s been floating around in me for years, though I haven’t been able to put my finger on it:

Story is more than a short story or a novel. It’s way deeper than that.

I know that must sound really simple. Duh, right? But as an author of fictional prose, I often forget this. In my heart, I know it–but my conscious mind overlooks it. In my struggle to find the right words…how should I shape the action of this chapter?–this character feels flat–I need more description right here, this paragraph is skinny–where’d my pacing go?…I forget about the reason I’m writing. I forget about the shared experience, the deep force that moves beneath the words and stirs our hearts. I forget about the story.

And I know it’s not just me, because when I go searching for explanations on story, I can’t find them. Suddenly, I have this passionate need to discover the essence of story, this thread that weaves through our lives and makes them meaningful. Everything is story. How can I tap that? But when I flip through my books on writing looking for an explanation of story, I get a lot of the same old stuff: Story is conflict and resolution. The story formula. The shapely story.

All of these books are about how to craft a piece of fictional prose that has a plot…but what is story? I know it’s more than a tale told through simple prose, because:

Stories can be poems.

Stories can be movies.

Stories can be comics.

Stories can be interactive.

Stories can be songs.

Stories don’t even need to have words.

So what, then, is story? I know what it is, in my heart, but my conscious brain wants to know.

I feel a journey beginning for me. A very big one.

It’s a grey, rainy day. Unusual for South Florida this time of the year–typically our dry season. I wonder if it heralds another cold front. I sure hope so. I was really <3ing the 40-degree weather.

My third semester of graduate school is over, and I’m enjoying my first real day off with nothing to do save write, read, and socialize. Nice to simply sit here in my room–just the perfect coolness, without the noisy arctic blast of A/C–while typing and listen to cars rush by outside, spraying water.

Waiting to receive the last batch of edits for This Hippogryph Can’t Fly. Hopefully, then, it’ll be off to the presses. In the meantime, I’ve begun work on a new series, something different and steampunk-ish. I’m thinking a duology or trilogy, plus a scattering of short stories to explore more of the world.

Speaking of YA speculative fiction short stories, Scape launches next month! Can’t wait!

Back to the rainy afternoon and my sloppy rough draft writing. Cheers.

…look little like traditional hippogryphs. They’ve got the horse body and the bird head, sure, but it’s…a corvid (raven/crow/jay) head, not an eagle head…and what’s up with the antlers?

Not to say I don’t like the WoW hippogryphs. I do! They’re just a little misleading, because they look very different from my hippogryph character inThis Hippogryph Can’t Fly.

Still, can’t resist posting a video of a WoW hippogryph, because 1) I love WoW, 2) I love WoW hippogryphs (despite--and because of--their differences), and 3) because I love the animation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=52k1ZncPF88

So, this is a little late, but here is the final Hippogryph’s cover!

Gorgeous, no?? I’ve been drooling over it for weeks now. (It has been weeks, right? Time moves so fast now, I can’t keep up with it.)

And the novel’s blurb:

…Actually, I haven’t been sleeping at all. On the contrary, I’ve been keeping quite busy with school and with writing!

This Hippogryph Can’t Fly is coming along. It’s been a little bumpy since June–”life getting in the way”–but the first round of edits is halfway done. I feel the characters getting meatier and the story getting richer. It’s immensely satisfying! Frustrating at times. But satisfying. (Editors have this wonderful habit of asking important little questions that you never even thought of and then have to spend five hours puzzling over!)

I am also quite pleased to share that Hippogryph has a cover. And it…is gorgeous. I’m not sure I can share it yet (it’s the rough draft), but it’s dark, it’s atmospheric, and it has a pretty bad-ass hippogryph on the cover.

Can’t wait to bury my nose in this thing. Am I the only crazy fool who likes to smell books?

Finished Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver. I am left smiling wistfully, wanting more, and also scratching my head. Just a little.

Shiver is a slow, lyrical teen werewolf story. The writing is poetic and descriptive; smoothly so. It’s a love story in a strange sort of way–when girl and boy meet, they’re already in love. It is not about falling so much as being. The entire story is a sort of meandering chronicle of characters’ time together. It reminds me of a long summer day lying in a field, staring at the clouds scudding by–not much happens, but it happens beautifully, and it happens engagingly. How Stiefvater pulled it off, I just can’t figure out. Hence, I’m left scratching my head.

I found the characters a bit two-dimensional, and I didn’t get a sense of much change or growth in them over the course of the story–but they were likeable. Grace, the girl, is a human in love with the wolves behind her house–stoic, independent, full of longing. Sam, the boy, is a wolf in the winter and a human in the summer–sad, sweet, bookish. Both are flawed, tragic, brave, and devoted. Sam, doubly so.

In any case, I could pull this story to pieces. I’ve read 5-star reviews on Amazon and 1-star reviews on Amazon, and I agree with points at both extremes. But in the end, it’s one of those books that is best to just let be. It is what it is, and it is good at it. If you’re looking for YA action or a typical romance story, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. Shiver is a warm breath of summer in a world of winter: fog hanging in the air, not quite tangible, beautiful. If you try to touch it, you can’t get a hold.

I <3 Animorphs!

Whee! I’m excited. Looks like my favorite childhood series, Animorphs, will be reprinted sometime this year or next.

Brain-stealing aliens, shapeshifting kids fighting to save the planet, and…cinnamon buns. Does it get any better?

No. No, it really doesn’t. ^_^

[Oh! Summer 2011. Nice.]

Woo-hoo! After a bit of a delay, This Hippogryph Can’t Fly has an editor!

Wheeeee, I have butterflies in my stomach. This will be the first time I’ve been professionally edited. Dad doesn’t count. (Love you, Dad. ^_~ )

Looks like things are moving again. I just hope that I’ll be able to keep up with schoolwork, Suite101 projects, fiction, and edits. Maybe if I stop wasting so much time procrastinating…

Woop! Back to work!

My parents got a new puppy, a Shetland sheepdog. Ever since our miniature schnauzer, Pepper, died a year and a half ago, I’ve really been missing puppy love. Plenty of kitty love, and while kitty love is good, it’s just not the same for me. Gotta have those booger eyes staring up at you with admiration, that happy-go-lucky grin, that little throaty “ruff!” when the dog knows you are looking at them but not petting them yet.

I took pictures, and some video! For your viewing pleasure *giggle* I present to you…Po. (And that big furless monster is me. ^_~ )

Eyes crazed! Teeth flashing! How DARE that beef ligament smell so tasty?!

Yes, I see you holding that ligament. Just what do you think you're playing at, eh?

Yesh...mmf...I lurv chewin' on Chrish's pamts shtrings!

Nyar nyar nyar!

All right. Tired now. Flop.

He's so CUTE!

I wuv puppy smell.

And…

Puppies…will be puppies.

…Yeah. I thought that was inappropriate, too. Bad Po!

Ha. Cheers!

So, my first semester of graduate nursing school is complete…or so I thought.

I returned Saturday night from a week-long camping trip to Ocala, FL to discover that I had somehow overlooked writing my term paper for one of my classes–a term paper worth half of my grade. Oh, yes. I freaked.

I also promptly wrote what had to be the most pathetic email I’ve ever written in my life. How do you explain forgetting to write a term paper? Er, you just don’t.

After two days of really re-evaluating my life and my career (as I wondered what would happen if I was dropped out of the program for failing a class), all I have to say is…thank God for understanding teachers.

The whole ordeal has given me a renewed appreciation for my family, my friends, my teachers, my writing, and the boundless possibilities in my life. It is also extremely, extremely humbling.

After I finish wading through this two-inch tall stack of research for my paper, I’d like to share a little of my north Florida adventures. I also want to get a review of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies up. Good book.

Anyway. What a week! Shoot…