When Research Is Always Necessary...

Have been so busy researching grants, hunting for work, looking for the next publishing opportunity, and writing the next story in the feline fantasy series that I just remembered I was suppose to, for the longest time, research three Indian languages (need to figure out which one my Desi characters will speak - whether it's Punjabi, Bengali, or Gujarati) and Dutch-Arab populations in the Netherlands (which background my Dutch character comes from) for two separate comic stories! Ay!

It's Summer Clean Up!

It's that time of year again! When things need to be cleaned up.

I did some book-culling.

Files between the 1999-2003:
Found some old research paperwork.
Found some old story drafts. A lot of my earlier science fiction and fantasy stories.
I know what I found can be updated.

Found some editorial comments and pages of exchanges. I'll prepare those images and blog posts to show what I've learned in the following days.

Bear with me, Dear Readers.

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.

New phone, new chapter

For anyone who knows me, I am a total tech geek - especially for what it says on my Twitter profile - and revel in using technology to its fullest. But I am in no way a trailblazer or pioneer, trying to bring new concepts into existence. 

Rather, I am that technical person who will learn about a software/hardware inside out, understand how it must be upgraded somewhat, and then use the HECK outta it! I will become fiercely loyal to that particular update, version, and refuse to change it in any way because I become so comfortable with the way the tech is. 

My mother laughed when my last cellphone died on me because, unlike other people, friends, a certain sibling, I don't lose my phones, I don't shatter their screens, drop accidentally in toilets, etc. As a matter of fact, when I bring in previous phones to get the upgrades, sales clerks often express awe that my phones are in pristine shape, almost as the day I purchased/contracted it!

Why I was laughed at is because I do EVERYTHING on my cellphones. From the moment I changed my Nokia to a Sony Ericsson, and discovered WAP (the earliest internet connection for phones), I have used my next Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, LGs, and even this HTC to type stories, blog, film short videos at cultural events, network, participate in forums, surveys, done market research, update blogs, synch with desktops and netbooks so I could continue my web designing projects, etc. 

And did I mention NOTES!? Ever since students at the college where I work introduced me to a certain note app, I've been a beast! I can actually say that the Samsung that died and this HTC literally helped me through graduate school! When I'm at work, and my mom, who's retired, negotiates phone deals for me, she has to go down the list of all the things I do with my phone to the customer representatives. 

Right now, I'm in a bit of a dilemma: this phone needs an upgrade but my provider no longer gives upgrades, rather, one must purchase a phone all together. Yet, the problem does not really remain on price, but, more so on what type of phone a crazed tweeter, blogger, writer, and author can use?

I'm still doing research on this, but please, if any of you dear readers have any suggestions, please, please, as many of my favorite YouTube celebrities would say: leave your comments in the box below, and happy reading, writing, and drawing!

Time Is Of the Essence

Graduation is fast approaching. My graduation.
Goals are being made.
I am outlining and taking this novel to the next level and pushing to try new things with writing.

Now it's November and getting down to the wire! So many things due: annotations, creative portions, 25-page essay, and the feedback and research that one accumulates in a semester...

I have so many questions for myself and what I might try to do.

Evernote(r) is an app that can cross platforms for simple note-taking, rigorous note-taking, research-gathering, posting images, recording and clipping web articles. It is such a handy app that I had to download it to both net book and desktop.

Unless you have used it, you have no idea how helpful it's been since a student at my campus told me about it!

I can't count when I was pressed for time (what with the job and looking into extra-income opportunities) and how, with only my cellphone, I hurriedly typed out an entry, bookmarked and clipped a webpage for research, or recorded a reminder (Ok. I only did that once, but it doesn't mean I won't continue it into a habit).

Had to turn in some more deadline PDFs... Ay, and I'm still working on the novel. While taking time to catch up on personal reading, I try to remind myself to always have time for other creative projects.

Here's to hoping to catch up and keep up! *Whew*!

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!

Another character...

Ok, so here's the BIG secret, although, if you're following me on social media, you may have already guessed it: I GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL! Why is this important? Well, it's in Creative Writing, and since I get to submit drafts, read tons of stories, and rewrite projects I'm currently working on, this degree program is right up my alley!

Now, on with the show...

My male protagonist's father.
Like all else with this story, I am trying to multi-fold each character with a history, and not just for background sake, but with the intent that we are all woven into a fabric, and that each life is part of a tapestry.

"Antonio Di Castellan" by Carmen K. Welsh (c)

Take, for instance, Antonio's story - a native Italian, born ethnically a Gypsy, who later takes his inheritance to travel to the New World. His story is like millions, and this immigrant experience continues, wonderfully, to this day.

The history books gloss over things once a person steps off the boat, the ship, or the plane. Yet, luckily for writers, the story does not end there.

Here, I had creased the paper, to find it quickly in the sketchbook, and looking at the sketch, I now realize it almost resembles an Ellis Island photograph, so I'll keep the crease there.
This is a sketch that I will hopefully revise soon. I also studied Ellis Island pictures so that I could get the sense of what a man, recently from Italy, in the 1890s - 1900s, would wear.

I also added the earring because many Romany men do wear jewelry proudly.

Short vs. Long - What will it be?

When speaking with other writers, one of the first things they ask me "Have you published?" and "Where?"

I have the stacks of useless drafts, first, second, third and infinite attempts in file cabinets, desk drawers, and shelves.

For the cat stories alone, for each short story published, I must have had over 40 drafts that were unpublishable, or, at best, could be used as notes for a newer idea.

But what's amazing is when the writers who are still struggling with their longer writing projects ask me how did I do it.

There isn't a secret formula.

I racked up the rejections, often in form letters flatly stating in cold terms that my idea was a failure.
I did the research, scoped through directories for viable markets to submit to, READ the submission guidelines - you won't believe how every so often - peers were not willing to search and read through. 'Too much work'.

Eventually, I realized if I didn't re-think a different strategy, the possibility of publication would grow slimmer than usual.
So I put aside all the longer works-in-progress, and decided to try my hand at short fiction. I had ideas that didn't seem to work in forty pages or more.

I re-read my favorite short stories, reread anthologies I read back in junior high and high school.

I trimmed down some longer works, and found that a few became stronger because of it.

Especially the cat stories, the ideas definitely grew better when I stopped trying for novel-length.

I found more markets for shorter fiction. My ideas could be expanded ironically in the tighter frame.

So that was the long and short of it.

'Stacey Hankin' as a little girl (circa 1922)

Yay! Art again! Sheesh... It's not productive OR fun when one's sick for awhile.

Here is my heroine, as a very tall 7 year old in the year 1921. So that puts her birth year in 1914, and the next year (1915) should be an important year North Americans, as well as anyone else who cares about history, should know. That is the year when the film, "Birth of a Nation" was released in theatres.

What is "Birth of a Nation"? Well, controversial is too mild a word to use.
Simply put, based on a bigot's book by the same name, both movie and book claim that the Ku Klux Klan won the South and freed it from the tyranny of blacks, who were demonized in both the book and film.

The author, whose name I will treat as Harry Potter's nemesis, I will not write it here on my blog, became a celebrity and his viewpoints were agreed by other racists across the country.
When Hollywood got wind of the book, instead of letting this dangerous volume remain within pages, decided it made a good film, no matter how disastrous and historically inaccurate it was!

Now, you see a cute picture of my protagonist and wonder why I am such a downer about mentioning this? Simply put, while researching my characters and their background, I began to wonder, what it must have felt like, being Black, or being any kind of minority, and what were the emotions when this film was released?

What terror could many American blacks have felt? What measures could they have taken to protect themselves and their communities? And worse of all, I have learned that the Civil Rights' Movement did not start in the late 50s and early 60s as many of us are taught in History class, but actually, many decades before.

What damage did "Birth of a Nation" do to the Movement? How much did this book and its companion movie set progress back?
****
Research this, DON'T use Wikipedia, I implore you, but more legitimate sites to research the author, his book, and the movie.
Maybe the film is even on YouTube, but PLEASE, see for yourself... And ask me why I write this with my character's art.

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.

What's the BIG Idea? Part 2

In my previous post, I continue to work on this particular storyline: about prophecy, lynxes, and caracals.
I wish to learn more, and therefore, I write more.

This cat series is where I feel at home, because it has been with me from the teenage years to my life now.

I may begin another blog with a different media to showcase the cat series as it involves a different set than the dog novel.

The cat epic fantasy is a series of short stories, and as it is NOT historical but fantastic, I have no background to go to, nor a foundation to read on, but have to build this world from the ground up. However, I find this refreshing to not be hindered by historical facts.

Do I create EVERYTHING myself? No. I still must research extensively, just not in the same way with the dog novel, which I must work within the framework of reality because there is no magic, no superhuman feats, or whimsy.
Simply put, folks trying to make it in a world crushed by the Great Depression...

"Gina" - Older vs. Younger

Here is my male protagonist's mother, the feisty Mrs. Gina! When I originally drafted her - before this sketch- I envisioned an elderly Italian woman in black with white lace. The more I wrote the story, the more I realized the character was anything but ordinary or typical! Gina is proud of the fact her husband was a Roma/Gypsy, as well as a wolf, and tries to instill that pride in their children.

I also realized that because Gina married her husband at such a young age, she is only middle-age and has grandchildren, so she is quite young for a grandmother!

What I will do is redraw her in the black shirt with lace in a different manner - she will dress this way sometimes when attending Mass or a holy day - and remove the puffed sleeves. She's also a little stouter than what I originally intended for her body type.

In the second sketch is Gina and my gangster when he is several months old! This is the youngest I've drawn him.
The draft is inspired from many Ellis Island photographs I've viewed over the years, as well as what photos I studied from the now extinct gathering place for many immigrants in the late 18th to 19th century.
Before Ellis on the East Coast, it was Castle Garden.
Castle Garden went by the wayside, I believe I read, in the mid-18th century, to make way for Ellis Island to become the gateway to the U.S.
The West Coast had its own whose name now escapes me, but when I remember, I will mention in a future post.

I also altered Gina's hair, making it more lush and thicker. She's a young woman, a mother of 15 years, and many women in the 1870s-1900s wore their hair long, usually piling it on top, or pulling it back in a bun or ponytail or other headdress-type coif. I realized this and added more hair to her younger picture, using a dark wash pencil to represent thickness.

Older, and during the 1920s-1930s, many women wore their hair short, often pixieish, so, I will change the older Gina's hair in a final draft.

Research does not have to be painful!

Research, especially for my creations, has often been a source of pleasure. I know that sounds odd, but experience has taught that when I research, look into information, it actually enriches the story, enhances the art.

Anthropological art, biological artists, those illustrations in science journals and encyclopedias have always fascinated me.

Some years ago, I realized I watched too many documentaries. I was a documentary-junkie. I decided to cut back.

Yet, taking notes from internet research, from numerous resources, checking out books, buying books, viewing documentaries with an eagle-eye, I was driving myself crazy.

It was a simple case of information overload.

Finally, I told myself that perhaps I worked harder, not smarter.

One day, I sat down, and decided to do something different: I would watch the documentary as a casual viewer, not taking notes.

I would tape the appropriate documentaries, disregard those that did not capture what I needed at the moment, and simply write down the experts' names, or a synopsis of the documentary series.

I still buy references -used- and I no longer visit my local library - I have most of what I need from my home libraries as well as what I now glean and receive from social media, and now, thanks to DVR, I can peruse and choose documentaries at my discretion.
Jotting down URLs, learning to categorize Bookmarks, these are the tools and tips for not making research agonizing, but productive, and, dare I say it? Even fun!
 
Yes, life doing research is good again.

Still here...

Bear with me. I'm still here. Working with editors and some new pieces/articles for other blogs, but don't worry, I still have a file of art to post this week. So, bear with me...

'Giovanni & Francesca Castellano' & Social Reform Photography

We, as writers, have to remember WHY we tell a story.

What held the 'gangster dog' WIP (Work-in-progess) back for an incalculable amount of time was by the fact I remained stuck in one character's head and POV (Point of View).

Since rewriting the story to show other characters' stories became my watershed moment. The floodgates literally and figuratively opened and I began to see the possibilities and connections being made and reinforced.

The above picture is supposed to be a family photo of my male protagonist with his eldest sister. They are only months apart and therefore, extremely close.

While researching this story, I came across many historical photographs with children and their families in Turn-of-the-century New York, as well as from photo albums.

Jacob Riis - please refer to my links at the bottom of this post! - was an important documentarian through the pictures he took in preserving history of Old New York.

I have tried, because this is a historical drama, to capture the feel of what it meant to grow up, live and die during those years.
What did Native New Yorkers want for their families, and what did New York immigrants want for their children? I hope as a writer, as well as storyteller, to capture such in the illustrations above. I hope as an artist to let readers be drawn into this story as I am.

NOTE: There was a documentary called "The Other Half", about the social reforms brought about because of Mr. Jacob Riis and Mr. Lewis Hine.

Here are two official links: Documenting "The Other Half": The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine

&

Jacob Riis: Shedding Light On NYC's 'Other Half' by Robert Siegel

(Personal endorsement) *Read NPR.org. Listen to NPR on the radio. Embrace it. Be informed. Be enlightened.*

Characters determine your story. You have no say.

Ay yi yi! The research for this novel is kicking my butt! While I tackle with this, I will also post current reference titles (Don't worry, they're doozies and humdingers!).

Lest one thinks this will interrupt my flow of new sketches, fear not, for I have more art to upload.
I noticed, however, that it was a good decision to edit my sketches (means removing the notes to myself - explaining character quirks, physical attributes, etc.) before uploading.

This has become a blessing in disguise as I realize names have changed, even which offspring will be whose in the making of this story.

I thought I had a set amount of children born to the different characters. Now, just as in real life, we cannot determine how many kids will make a family. Even this story is changing that presumption.

So, thankfully, when I upload more pics, you will notice there are no names or explanations, except, of course, what I place in the captions.

*Chortling* Anyone who tells you 'It's your story, you can do whatever you want with it' clearly isn't a writer!

Dog novel & research has slowed to a crawl

I've reached journal #10 for the dog gangster story, writing time (which usually ran 3-5 pages a day) has slowed.
Also, researching has changed. I did commando-style skimming, flipping through certain chapters, trying to finish other chapters on a given topic.

Now, I do a more in-depth research, where I find time to read each reference as a novel.