a curl of dragon breath
Feb. 24th, 2015 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeI saw the blue jays' exhaled breath, rising from their nostrils, as they carried off the peanuts I put out for them. Their internal furnaces are hotter than humans', around 105F (40.5C)--more than 120 degrees hotter (in Fahrenheit) than the outside temperature, so it's no wonder it was visible in curling plumes in the cold air. Little dragons.
I blew some soap bubbles and watched them freeze. This one got caught on the snow mound, and its deflated back rose and fell and rose and fell in slight breeze, as if it, too, were breathing. A very thin-skinned, tiny being.
Now maybe you're wondering if I'll ever talk about something other than the weather. I do have other thoughts!
Press A if you would like my thoughts on Sleepy Hollow--better yet, tell me yours.
Press B if you would like some hazy realizations about writing--or share yours!
I realized--or re-realized? realized anew?--how important details are for really giving a story a sense of depth. I know. This must win an award for the most unsurprising, well-known realization ever. But I was thinking of it with a short story that cafenowhere linked me to the other day. The story felt really *rich*, and it was because there were details that built up the scene.
... I realize this makes it sound like I'm arguing for really florid prose or something--or at least, I can see how what I'm saying could read like that--so I need to clarify somehow, because that's NOT what I mean. Writing could be either spare *or* florid, or neither. It's just that having more than the *bones* makes it feel real-er.
Some writers can and do get away with writing just bones--I guess famously Hemingway, for one--so it's not that it can't be done. But I like a dented coffeepot, the sound of the furnace firing up, the smell of onions and stale cooking oil, those kinds of things, to sink my mind into.
Press C if you would like a status update on my own writing--or tell me how yours is going (or your other pleasurable creative activity, if not writing).
Status of my main project, a novel, is that I realized whereas with most novels, I get a vague-ish sense of plot (summarizable in a sentence or two) along with a few characters, and then branch and deepen, with the current one, I have the characters and situation, and an ultimate destination (where I want the main characters to be at the end), but absolutely no firm sense of what I want the central story to be like. Depending on which way I decide to take it, it'll be very different in mood and feel. It's so strange to realize it's still so un-fixed!
I blew some soap bubbles and watched them freeze. This one got caught on the snow mound, and its deflated back rose and fell and rose and fell in slight breeze, as if it, too, were breathing. A very thin-skinned, tiny being.
Now maybe you're wondering if I'll ever talk about something other than the weather. I do have other thoughts!
Press A if you would like my thoughts on Sleepy Hollow--better yet, tell me yours.
Press B if you would like some hazy realizations about writing--or share yours!
I realized--or re-realized? realized anew?--how important details are for really giving a story a sense of depth. I know. This must win an award for the most unsurprising, well-known realization ever. But I was thinking of it with a short story that cafenowhere linked me to the other day. The story felt really *rich*, and it was because there were details that built up the scene.
... I realize this makes it sound like I'm arguing for really florid prose or something--or at least, I can see how what I'm saying could read like that--so I need to clarify somehow, because that's NOT what I mean. Writing could be either spare *or* florid, or neither. It's just that having more than the *bones* makes it feel real-er.
Some writers can and do get away with writing just bones--I guess famously Hemingway, for one--so it's not that it can't be done. But I like a dented coffeepot, the sound of the furnace firing up, the smell of onions and stale cooking oil, those kinds of things, to sink my mind into.
Press C if you would like a status update on my own writing--or tell me how yours is going (or your other pleasurable creative activity, if not writing).
Status of my main project, a novel, is that I realized whereas with most novels, I get a vague-ish sense of plot (summarizable in a sentence or two) along with a few characters, and then branch and deepen, with the current one, I have the characters and situation, and an ultimate destination (where I want the main characters to be at the end), but absolutely no firm sense of what I want the central story to be like. Depending on which way I decide to take it, it'll be very different in mood and feel. It's so strange to realize it's still so un-fixed!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-02-24 11:35 pm (UTC)