I'm getting there...

Been working on how to get my Bosto pen to work in FireAlpaca. The pen works fine in both Paint and Paint 3D but the strokes are off when I tried coloring in FireAlpaca, which is what I need it for. When I checked my laptop settings, I learned my Bosto Pen Display updated its own drivers and didn't need my help on that end. 

After much digging, YouTube viewing, and whatnot, finally found a TechShift article that explained you need to download the latest Wacom drivers. Those drivers, while from another company, helped calibrate with Bosto's pen since the display tablet updated itself. Sheesh! I'm really out of the loop!

A *NEW* Art of Plugging Away

What bothers me with some of the science fiction I grew up on is how naive even advanced alien species are to our ways.

Though my alien protagonist perceives us differently than how we view him, he is in no way unaware to the existence of racism, bigotry, and other systems of oppression. He comes from a galaxy-spanning star-system-traveling alien civilization. They have *seen* slavery before. They understand what bigotry looks like. 

One of the shows that really impressed me and may be time for a binge-watch was the TV series ALIEN NATION. It started with, I think, two TV movies, to give the setup before becoming a 45 min-1 hour per episode series. The show shaped how I thought about aliens, humans, racism, bigotry, and how such hateful tools can be used against an entire group. 

As what is often the purpose of alien-vs-human scifi, the story is to call more attention not so much to the strangeness of the alien, but how utterly strange and dysfunctional human beings can be and are, but, with some help from our star cousins, or their collective efforts to destroy us as a species, we can then have the opportunity to show moments of our highest evolved selves. 

The Art of Plugging Away 2.0 ('20)!

I'm working on a number of projects as I always do. But one is a graphic novel that's had many starts and stops. About near the end of 2018 is when I finally figured out how I should make this story 'look'...  

Now, I've gathered all the drafts and am wondering about how to bring them to final: do I manually light-box trace to better paper or scan/upload and fix on illustrator software? 

We shall see.😬

The Art of Plugging Away

Wow, I haven't done an 'Art of Plugging Away' post in a LONG time!

One of the side effects since updating my characters to Caribbean(or the diaspora), I realize I don't know how to spell most of the food/drink I've grown up with and have taken for granted.😄😍

Will list those words I had to do an Internet search on for an upcoming post.

The Art of Plugging Away...

Ahhh... It's been a while since I wrote one of these.

shutterstock photo keyword writer

A lot has been happening with my writing. I'm applying for many writing opportunities, revising, editing, and then submitting. Being a nervous wreck as deadlines approach and I wonder will I be accepted. A short story was accepted, but a query letter's objective wasn't. *weeps*

 rgbstock.com photo by Arinas74

You may have noticed I changed the wording in the title and subtitle for this blog. I think it's more straight forward rather than so enigmatic with the previous title!

I also updated my website, "trimmed the fat," so to speak. I tidied up the wording, paying close attention to my Visitor Tracker on the main page. I've not only been getting visitors from the United States, but also a couple from overseas! It's both exciting and frightening, which is why I decided to tweak the wording and rearrange some of the icon links. Need to be professional at all times.

I'm also looking into more professional freelance writing so that I may supplement my income. The novel is now a 'working novel' instead of a 'novel draft' or a 'work-in-progress'. Its latest was at 580+ pages on the main manuscript. Still writing. Still researching.

I bring one book log (what I call my writing journals)

My two protagonists (c)

to my main job so I can use my breaks and in-between tutoring sessions to write some more. Stacey Hankin and Slasher Castellano are both fun protagonists to write about and that's a good sign to a writer. We need to feel sympathetic towards our characters, even our antagonists, or the tales would never be told.

Again, thanks for reading. As more writing adventures continue, even artistic ones, please watch this space!
The website is a focal point and my 'business card', but my blogs, especially this one, are a diary/journal that I use to keep readers in the loop.

Lastly, SUBSCRIBING to this blog is FREE! I may offer a newsletter in the future that will be attached to it. We will see.
And again, THANK YOU, Dear Readers.

I continue to plug away

Currently using my novel draft as my project for the duration of this MFA program.

The previous packet involved a difficult subplot that, had I not pushed through it, would not have made sense to work on the rest of the book.

It involved the female protagonist's early months in Harlem, thrown into the middle of all the music, politics, sex, bootlegging, gangster-tied and gangster-owned businesses, legit and illegitimate, and how she is trying to survive her time just to live in a decent apartment. Her fight to live her life as comfortably as possible 'morally compromises her' (mentor's words, not mine) and forces her into things she would not have done had she still been home in rural Tennessee. However, she is smart and capable, and though naive and not as worldly as her counterparts, she easily wades into the corruption that threatens to drown her.

When I first came up with the idea for this novel, I never dreamed nor expected it to grow in the ways it has. Each term grows stronger with my confidence to this book. It has stretched my writing muscles and my research skills. When I run up against a wall, I am able to bounce back in quicker than before. Now that I got through this chapter, -- my mentor enjoyed it, loved the new character I introduced who will serve for most of the book, but was pleased that I strengthened my female protagonist to the point she blazes across the pages -- and with only structural and transitional issues to go over and edit, I think I got off easy.

Last month, and even in July, I did not think I would pull this chapter off. Even before the day of the deadline, when I sent it in, I was lamenting that it wouldn't fly: it was rough and coarse. Shoddy, it wasn't my best work. But it did work. And according to those in my life that know this story from its inception until now, structure issues are easier to deal with than the idea and imagination used. In other words, the fundamental core of the story is left intact and my feedback included adjectives on how I handled scenes and description, which are some of my strengths. Now, to work more on transition and structure. And get my tools ready for the next chapter, and more on that third-term essay!

If you feel this is for you, then do that MFA. But, also look for the right one for you, even if it takes a while. Like I did.

The Art of Plugging Away - New Edition

"There comes a time in everyone's life...." Blah blah blah. No, I will give it to you straight - have been back from residency and didn't think it was possible.
I realized I was burned out last term (Jan 2014) and needed to recuperate. Then I read an article in Poets&Writers magazine about 'post residency stress'.
I brought it up with a poet cohort of mine (we are divided into three groups: poetry, nonfiction and fiction (my group), and he told me that it was a true condition! So that's probably why I am dragging and yet have momentary bursts of energy. And according to the author of that article, it affects everyone in different ways. For her, it affected her mood, emotions, and at some point, her circadian rhythm.
For me, it's making me itchy and tense. I feel I have to burn the midnight oil, drop into bed so late that I'm only getting a few hours sleep. This isn't good. And now I need to get back into my groove, which is proving elusive.
Well, one, no, a couple good things out of this mania: I'm getting work done.
I'm putting my research together for my third term critical essay.
I already put together/organized my folders from school on my desk.
Sent some important emails (have two more left) and I am getting my books a month in advance for the rest of this year's packets. Whew.
Let the Games Begin!

The Art of Plugging Away - Part 5

This is where I tell you that all is well.
Now that the novel is complete. Oh wait, that's not true. IT ISN'T.
That was a lie, or what I'm telling myself.

The first draft of a very complicated work-in-progress is COMPLETE. But that doesn't mean the work IS DONE.

Remember I spoke of the Dreaded Second Draft? Well, now that I'm in this phase, historical research and the sense of place is what I am trying to accomplish.

Regional accents, dialects, the details of daily life during the Great Depression, how law enforcement worked with local vice squads and morality committees is new information to me.

There was segregated housing (homeless shelters and 'poor houses' weren't immune) by race and by gender: sorry 21st-Century Folks! 'Shacking up' was a definite No-No in the 1930s, and a landlady/landlord could evict a tenant on such grounds!
Especially if said tenant's partner/lover was caught in the apartment, and during after-hours, when everyone was suppose to be asleep!

The realization I came to: that no matter this misguided notion that I missed some crucial details while living in New York City (I left at nine, so there was nothing to be done about it), there would have been no possible way I could recreate a New York of the past!
Even if I wrote a story in recent years, my New York City of the 1980s is long gone!
Once I came to this sort of thinking, that is what freed me.

Another, more concrete, reason I came to this decision was from David Nasaw, the history professor-cum-author of the book "The Patriarch", a leaner accuracy of who the Kennedy patriarch was like: as a man, a father, a husband, and as a human being.

He explained that, and I am paraphrasing the good Dr. Nasaw, no matter what point in history one chooses to write it, trying to recreate the past as a writer is like going to a fantasy land.
In other words, what does a historian and historical fiction writer have in common with a fantasy writer? Everything!

The past is a nebulous thing. It can never be touched, even by those who lived in that time, ever again.

Now with that thought in mind, I will continue the story.

The Art of Plugging Away - a side note

Wow. This novel is starting to get on my nerves. Not my characters, mind you. I enjoy them! I feel like the guest who has overstayed her welcome.
But have no fear!
I like to finish what I've started, especially when it comes to my writing and my artwork... So stay tuned.

The Art of Plugging Away - A side note

I was told, in early writing exercises, that my voice was authentic.
Or, when I write my male gangsters, and how other male protagonists behave, there have been, so far, little to no complaints from the men who read my fiction.
Rarely have I changed a character's race, though the ethnicity proved trickier to determine. As the story progressed, the ethnicity would become resolved.

The Art of Plugging Away - Part 4

There comes a time when you realize that the tempo of the writing process has changed: the frenzy of being in the Muse's grip has lessened, and what was once Inspiration's passion, that made one feverishly have daily output, that deluge of creativity, now trickles.
What pages I would write! 3 pages, 5 pages, more!
Now, days can go by where I will write a paragraph. Or two sentences. Or one, and I will be satisfied.
I am not complaining. The piece is done. I am in Second-Draft-Mode.

Writing in Ethnicity - Art of Plugging Away

Now, because I'm working on this new short story, have I abandoned the dog historical drama?
Perish the thought!

I've spent the better part of over two years working on this story, and much of my life from 6th grade summer school trying to figure out how to write it!

Now that I have 13 filled journals and a stockpile of empty ones, as well as time and money put into purchasing a reference LIBRARY alone for this novel, there is NO WAY.

Just this week, an employee of mine asked, while we lunched together, if with this story, what kind of dog breeds I use for the different ethnic groups, and I remember a young friend asked a similar question.

The young friend feared that I, even using non-human characters, would settle into stereotypes.
Because societal viewpoints are constantly on my mind as a creative type, I often want to go against the grain.

I don't appreciate when others take the easy way. I strive to make stories that I know I would read, that I would prefer watching.

I assured my young friend then, and my employee this week, that I use not only breeds indigenous to a region/country/nation, but I work on creating an individual first.

Also, because it's New York, have numerous mix-bred dogs (I just love mutts! Both cats and dogs!).

Consequentially, history reveals that organized crime had people of many ethnicities working together for the common bad! Though the Italian mob is more widely known, serialized, idolized, satirized and mythologized, it was NOT the established mob of the U.S.

This distinction actually went to the Irish, who, when the exodus of Southern Italians came to American shores, ran up against a brick wall: the Irish, in earlier years, harassed, oppressed, and racially held back, had established themselves in parts of American society where other Americans, who were called 'Nativists' then, couldn't touch: in politics, the police, and an in-grained infrastructure within the underworld.

By the '30s, the ethnic groups who were controlling most of organized crime weren't just the Irish and the Italians. There were the Jews, the Germans, the Polish, and the Blacks!
There is much of what I assumed, that has fallen apart since I began this story anew. I hope to see it through and let it open eyes as it has opened mine.

The Art of Plugging Away - Part 3

I came to the realization that my published story 'Firefly Crown' - which begins a series of adventures and misadventures - cannot go under the guise of simply one title.

I will have to treat this short story series as I do the overall milieu of its world, 'Tabber the Red', different standalone short stories with their own distinct titles.

The next story has a new title, and will involve a character from the previously published story, and who takes center stage. 

The Art of Plugging Away - Part 2

I've discovered a few insights since I officially began writing the first draft to my dog crime saga: I've found additions to previous hobbies and broadened my scope.
First, let me give you a brief history on this novel.

My first ideas and sketches were in 6th grade. I drew a lot of my own books in those days. It took place in the 1980s (Why not? That's all I knew!). I called it 'Stacey's Story'. It was a direct rip-off of "Lady and the Tramp". As I grew older and became further entrenched in history, I kept going backwards (the 70s, 60s, until I decided that the War Years and its movies were my favorite time period, the 40s). Afterwards, I kept said title until it became 'Stacey:1943'. I still had humans, but could not negotiate dog years within human history. I even did research on World War II, and this messed me up.

Finally, well, eventually, I gave up. Typing the story became a treatment when I suffered from Writer's Block (thank God, I don't suffer often). I discarded everything. I just stowed it away, taking it out every now and again, looking at all my work in a forlorn manner. I didn't want to discard all that research. I felt, 'My G*d, all that time wasted!'
What would this story come to, I wondered? Would I even make it happen?
To reuse a cliche' - What a difference a few years make!

In March 2010, I used a neglected notebook. It appeared to be a business legal pad, navy blue, almost puffy cover.
Inklings about the dog story began to crop up again. Ideas would jump into my head, drop from the sky, anything new, I quickly jotted down. It's as if the story was fighting back, fighting to survive. It removed the ideas that bogged it down, held it from full potential.

Prohibition had been peaking my interest. I was so long a fan of 40s, 50s movies, but now the Silent Era was calling to me. I began watching comedians I wasn't familiar with: Harold  Lloyd, Charley Chase, the history of movie studios and films. I bought used books as references: about the different ethnic group emigrations to the U.S., about speakeasies.
Pre-Hayes Code films, 1930-1932, Hollywood at its most irreverent, its most scandalous take in movies. These black-and-white reels made jokes about sex and poked fun at subject matters I thought only came into being in the 60s!
I couldn't believe one early 1930s movie made a point about the heroine thinking and preparing for the fact that the hero would want to sleep with her! And when the hero told her good night and took to the couch, her reaction is timeless! Could these old-time movies really talk about such stuff that make up our regular, modern films?

I removed the human beings. I gave the dogs center-stage. They owned the book.
I took them from Disney half-clothed and made them stand upright, fully-attired, even wearing lingerie and undergarments! What was good for my epic fantasy cats should be good enough for my gangster dogs!

Finally, I set it in the early 30s, when the Great, Noble Experiment is losing its grip on the rest of the nation.
By doing so, I released the floodgates of possibilities: stories of immigration, the political, cultural and ethical ramifications of liquor and how banning it changed our socio-cultural landscape...

This is/are the novel(s) I write now.

The art of plugging away

My dog crime drama has been an on-again-off-again relationship since 6th grade.
Some years back, I gave it up. Just got sick and tired of plugging at something that wasn't growing.
The plot, the characters, didn't seem to want to attain fruition.
So I gave up on it.

And you want to know something? That's when the story grew.

Like a seed you plant, and water, sprinkle plant food, till it, and nothing.
But as you ignore the pot/garden/field..that's when it happens.
Magic.