Inspiration

Writers are often asked "Where do you get your ideas? I've never personally been asked this questions, but have spent much time thinking on this in case it should ever come up. And my answer to the question that writers hate: I get my ideas from real and imagined life. Things that have happened to me or to someone I know. Things I wish I could change the ending to--which is why I'm a fiction writer and not a memoirist. And other media inspires me such as TV, movies, video games, and books.

With all that said, I've found there are places and activities that inspire what I like to call "brain blasts" (to borrow a term from Jimmy Neutron--TV what did I tell you?) otherwise known as bursts of inspiration.

This is a short list of those places/activities:
-The Shower
-The Car
-Running
-Sleeping--although when I wake the ideas never seem quite as epic as they did when I was unconscious

Notice that in all of these places I am not sitting in front of my laptop with a blank Pages/Word document. Nor do I have a pen and paper handy in the shower. (One day I will take a whiteboard into the bathroom with me).

But also notice that all of these places/activities have something in common. These are all activities in which the brain is relaxed or on autopilot. Which leaves the creative side (I always forget what side of the brain that is…left?) to wander.

So if ever you need a brain blast, go for a run or take a long drive with no particular destination. Find your places that inspire creativity.

Top 9 Moments of 10 Little Indians

Sherman Alexie's Ten Little Indians is an amazing collection full of wonderful lines and moments. The following is my top 9 list of favorite moments from Ten Little Indians--one from each story.

Search Engine:

"I'm a Spokane Indian. I'm an English literature major here."
"Oh, God, you're an Indian?"
"Well, mostly. Fifteen sixteenths to be exact."
"So, fifteen sixteenths of you is studying the literature of the other one sixteenth of you?"

Lawyer's League:

"Ignore my husband," said the Democrat wife. "He's a right-wing maniac."
"And you, my lovely wife, are a knee-jerk liberal."
"You keep talking like that, and it's going to be a long time before you stick your right wing in my knee jerk."

Can I Get a Witness?

"Nobody is innocent, right? she said. "Isn't that what all of the holy books say? We're all sinners? But after the Trade Center, it was all about the innocent victims, all the innocent victims, and I kept thinking--I knew one of those guys in the towers was raping his daughter. Raping her. Maybe he was raping his son, too. And beating his wife."

Do Not Go Gentle:

My wife and I didn't know Mr. Grief in person until our baby boy got his face stuck between his mattress and crib and suffocated himself blue. He died three times that day, Mr. Grief squeezing his lungs tight, but the muscular doctors and nurses battled that suffocating monster man and brought our boy back to life three times. He was our little blue baby Jesus.

Flight Patters:

"We're all trapped by other people's ideas, aren't we?"

The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above:

She was always making scenes. She yelled at mothers and fathers who publicly spanked their children (Hey, Mussolini, how would you like me to do that to you?), and commented loudly at any display of public rudeness:
     1. "Oh, look at Prince Pushy of Monaco, cutting in line. Hey Prince, do you keep your crown in your ass?"
     2. "Oh, excuse me, excuse me, Ms. Moneybags, but I see that your party of eight left only a dollar tip for the waitress. I assume that was an honest mistake."
     3. "Okay, okay, everybody, listen up, we're all waiting in line to get our driver's licenses, but this man here, he's cursing a lot, so he obviously needs his license more than anybody else in the history of the world. Can somebody please get him a special driver's license, please, hurry."

Do You Know Where I Am?

"'All in green went my love riding,'" she whispered in that special way, "'on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn.'"
"Cummings wrote the poem, and I'm in love and gone," I said and made my slow way down the creek side.

What you Pawn I Will Redeem:

"You Indians. How the hell do you laugh so much? I just picked your ass off the railroad tracks, and you're making jokes. Why the hell do you do that?"
"The two funniest tribes I've ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide."

Whatever Happened to Frank Snake Church?

Mr. Death, Frank thought, if a lie is beautiful, then is it truly a lie?

**That's all for Sherman Alexie, I promise. I'll be back in a couple of weeks with a new topic…I hope.

10 Little…9 Little…8 Little Indians: a Book Review

Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie was published in 2003 by Grove Press.

I particularly like this cover. There are 10 Indian silhouettes all touching like chain dolls cut out of paper. The Indians wrap around onto the back cover, with one Indian on the spine. The cover is blue, yellow, and black. It's very minimalistic and clean. There are ten Indians on the cover, leading me to think there will be 10 stories in the collection (all with Indians as protagonists). There are 9 stories. This bothered me at first. I really wanted there to be 10 stories. But then my professor suggested that Alexie is the 10th Indian and well, that's really funny. I'm just upset that I didn't think of that.

The collection of stories contains "stories about Native Americans, who like all Americans, find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads, faced with heartrending, tragic, sometimes wondrous moments of being that test their loyalties, their capacities, and their notions of who they are and who they love" (I stole this from the back of the book).
All the protagonists are Indians, more specifically Spokane. Many of the stories deal with relationships between people. Strangers who meet and bond in the face of tragedy, racism, or for the love of poetry.
Love is another continuing theme. The book opens with an epigraph from Sappho, "Love--bittersweet, irrepressible--loosens my limbs and I tremble." This is a sexy epigraph and fits the sexiness of Alexie's stories. For example, Corliss's love for poetry could easily be described by the Sappho epigraph.
There are also themes of race and identity. With the concept of identity, many of the narrators are concerned with being special or at least more than ordinary. Some characters struggle with their Indian heritage.
Many of the stories, especially the ones dealing with death and grieving involve ceremony. In "Do Not Go Gentle" the parents of a sick child buy a vibrator and perform a ceremony to make Mr. Grief go away. In the last story, Frank Snake Church partakes in multiple ceremonies while trying to move past his grief. He pounds the floor while chanting, eats his father's hair, and plays hours upon hours of basketball. The basketball acts as a ceremony--a way to grieve his parents and loss of his youth.

This collection is also very humorous, which is primarily why I love Alexie's writings so much. He has a way of being dark, poignant, and hilarious all in the same story.

Next week: Top 10 Favorite Moments from Ten Little Indians

Best Character Ever

The entire cast of To Kill a Mockingbird is wonderful. The teachings of Atticus, the wild schemes of Dill, and Uncle Jack--yes, just Uncle Jack. But the best character of all is our protagonist, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. And here is a list of Scout's awesomeness:

1. Scout is honest and speaks her mind As a five year old, Scout sees no problem in saying what she's thinking. When her classmate, Walter, comes over for lunch and pours syrup all over his food, she asks him why he's doing that. That he's ruining the food. She is dragged out of the kitchen and reprimanded by Calpurnia (another amazing character who consistently scolds Scout, but you see Cal's love for Scout all throughout the novel). Scout is honest to a fault; even when it gets her into trouble, like on the first day of school.

2. Scout is curious. She wants to learn. Her father, Atticus, never talks down to her or her brother, Jem. When Atticus uses a word Scout doesn’t understand she asks him what it means. She has a desire to understand. This is also shown by her love of books. “I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” Her passion for books is so deep that it goes beyond love. Reading is necessary to Scout’s very life.

3. Scout is very protective of her family. The main reason she gets into fights is because someone has insulted Scout or a family member of hers. She fights to defend her honor or the honor of her family. However, this is due more to her pride than anything. And Atticus has a talk with her about not solving her problems with her fists.

4. Scout is true to herself. Scout does what she wants without worrying too much about what others think of her. She does not go around pretending to be something she’s not, but she will bend to appease her father. When Atticus forbids Scout to fight, she promises she won’t. And she really tries to keep her promise.

5. Scout is fun. My favorite line (other than quote in #2) comes at the end of the book. Scout and Jem are walking home in the dark and they realize that someone is following them. Thinking it is her classmate who jumped out at her earlier in the night, Scout turns around and hollers, “Cecil Jacobs is a big, wet he-en!” This line sadly did not make it into the amazing film version. Scout, Jem, and their friend Dill spend the summers running around and use their imaginations to have great adventures. 

6. Scout has a great name. Her birth name may be Jean Louise, but she is wholly and completely Scout.

And that’s why Scout’s is an amazing character and a person I strive to be like when I grow up.

Best Literary Characters Ever

Characters are the heart of the story. They're what keeps us coming back. We like to see them struggle and succeed. Some characters are so real, it's like they're family. We go on this epic journey with them and by the time we finish the book, it can be hard to put it down. It's like saying good bye to a best friend. So I've decided to compile a list of my favorite literary characters of all time. This is by no means a complete list. There are so many characters out there. These are just the ones I thought of. There are some that I've forgotten. And many more that I have yet to meet.

So without any further ado...
The Best Literary Characters Ever:

8. Don Quixote (from Don Quixote)

7. Janie Crawford (Their Eyes Were Watching God)

6. Scarlett O'Hara (Gone with the Wind)

5. Benvolio (from Romeo and Juliet)

4. Hamlet (and Horatio from Hamlet)

3. Anne (of Green Gables)

2. Huck (and Jim, of course! from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

...and my number one favorite character of all time...

1. Scout Finch (and Calpurnia and Atticus and Uncle Jack--Can I just include the entire cast from To Kill a Mockingbird?)

Wow, only 8. I need to start reading something other than comic books!

Beauty in Simplicity

As a writer of fiction, I was taught that my characters should be round. They should be complicated and developed. And this makes sense. As readers, we want to follow characters who learn and grow in the time we spend with them. We want them to be presented with struggles and challenges and we want to see if these challenges can be overcome by our protagonist(s). Simple characters can be predictable. Who wants to read a story they can predict the end to?

But what about those flat, minor characters? Well, they have a place in stories, too. First of all, they are necessary to some story arcs. Not every character can be fleshed out, especially in a shorter piece of work. Some characters have to be flat. If every charter in fiction came complete with backstory and complications, all their problems would take away from the journey of the main characters. For example, what do we know about the waiter in Hemingway's "Hills like White Elephants?" In this short, short story that focuses intently on the American couple, do we really need to know the waiter's desires and backstory? Of course not. Sometimes a waiter is just a waiter.

But flat characters can be awesome. Take the Duke and Dauphin from Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." These guys are pretty one-note characters. They come into Huck's story, louse things up for our lead, try to make a few bucks, and leave (well, more like run out of town) without learning a lesson. And we are left to imagine what other adventures these two might have and what other scams they might pull.

And they are despicable people, but darn it, they're a lot of fun too. Who doesn't love the Royal Nonesuch?

Or how about the Lummi Indian in Sherman Alexie's "War Dances"? We don't get his backstory or motivations. He's just a guy in a hospital waiting for his sister to give birth. But he delivers my favorite line in all of Sherman's works. After the protagonist, a Spokane Indian, asks the Lummi if he has a blanket, the Lummi asks him if the Spokane assumed he would have a blanket simply because he is Native American. "You're stereotyping your own damn people," the Lummi says, and then immediately follows with, "But damn if we don't have a room full of Pendleton blankets."

All three of these characters are basically flat. They have no development, but they are all essential to the stories in which we find them. The Duke and Dauphin sell Jim into slavery. And the Lummi provides our protagonist with the much coveted blanket.

Flat characters are necessary, and can be fun and interesting in capable hands. They balance the protagonists. For every Jean Valjean whose epic journey is full of struggles and heartbreak there is a villainous, slimy M. Thénardier with a get-rich-quick mentality. The Thénardiers in literature balance out the Valjeans. And their simplicity can be just a entertaining as the complexities of our heroes.

So You Want to Be a Rabbit...

So You Want to Be a Rabbit
The Introvert's Guide to Passing as an Extrovert

This is by no means the be-all, end-all guide on this subject, since I'm still figuring this out as I go. For the be-all, end-all guide, you want to read "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain. However, until you get your hands on a copy of Cain's book, here is my list to tide you over.

1. Own It. It's okay to be introverted. We live in a world that praises the yellers. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and such. And yes, it is important, especially for writers, to get out and market yourself. Networking and building an audience so when you get published, you have an audience of readers interested in you and therefore will be interested in your writing. Yes, it is important to get out there and make yourself public. But don't get overwhelmed, because it is okay to be introverted. That is who you are. Own It!

However, to survive in this world, you do have to at least pretend to be a little extroverted at times. So the following are tips to stepping outside of your comfort zone.

2. Start Slow. Don't commit yourself to too much at once. Remember that as an introvert, you need to have some alone time to recharge. Keep that in mind when embarking on this journey or stepping outside your comfort zone. For example, let's say have the opportunity to read at an open mic night or poetry reading, but don't feel ready to stand in front of people and share your own world. So here's what you do, you build up to it. Start with going to an open mic night or reading for writers. Get used to the atmosphere. Watch the performers. Listen to how they are reading. Practice reading out loud by yourself. Then for a friend/family member. Then maybe a small group of friends. Build up to it. So maybe the next time the opportunity arises, you will be a little less afraid to read in public. Don't let the fear of public speaking keep you from sharing your work. And you know what, if you mess up, if you stumble over a couple words, it's not the end of the world. I promise.

3. Reward Yourself. When you have stepped out of your comfort zone (participated in a reading or by starting a blog that you plan to maintain on a weekly basis or even going to your best friend's baby shower) do something that you enjoy. Something that brings you peace. Go home and listen to your favorite song. Watch a movie. Write. Eat ice cream. For example, after I finish this blog, I'm going to watch Batman Returns. So maybe that sounds like a sucky reward to you. That's fine. Go find your "Batman" and use it as a reward for stepping outside of your comfort zone. The bigger the step, the bigger the reward.