Domesticate Your Badgers
Exercises
Chapter 1
- What kinds of things do you want to write?
Short stories to novel length works of fiction or graphic novels in the vien of Murakami, Tatsumi or Asano. Magical realism. Solarpunk. Neonoir. Cosmic horror. Centered on a sense of and connection to space. Character driven writing.
More notes in the Digital Garden.
- What is your long term goal?
Traditional publication of a short story, novel or novel-length work of non-fiction within a field of interest. Rich digital garden. Completion of a long-form graphic novel published online or a collection of Tatsumi genkiga-style short graphic works.
- What do you define success in your area?
For fiction: traditional publication in a nationally distributed print publication like Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine or similar. Inclusion in a print anthology.
For graphic novels: established online readership through my own website.
An entry in Wikipedia. Advancement of the various philosophical, ethical, and social causes into the public noosphere.
Chapter 2
- Make a list of the reasons that your write.
I write for two reasons 1) I want to see more of the kinds of stories that I write in the world; and 2) I want to imprint various feelings about being that I feel onto others
- Are you talented? If so why?
I have developed skills around particular kinds of writing -- largely technical writing, journaling, tabletop adventures and essays. This is not from an innate talent or particular skill with words. Indeed, I think that I struggle with alliterative writing. Making sentences sound good. Making them convey meaning through concise word choice.
In the past, I have struggled with narrative writing. Placing a protagonist within a plot. Motivating them to engage in the plot. Writing convincing dialogue.
- Do you have authorial imposter syndrome?
No.
- When writing turns hard, how have you habitually coped? How can you rediscover your whee?
I've lost interest. Put the work aside and ignored it. During NaNoWriMo though, I would simply write lots of words or break the forth wall and complain about my writing until I got past whatever part of the narrative I was disinterested.
Chapter 4
- What writing advice worked for you?
The elements of style
- What writing advice didn't work for you?
Class writer's critiques
- What advice strikes you as bogus?
That there is progress in the quality of literature over time. There is changes in style, but I don't think progress
Consider what kind of writer you want to be. What sort of things do you want to write, and how do you want to write them? List some writers who write the sort of things you want to write, in the way you want to write them.
Kuroac
Murakami
Kawabata
Asano Inio
Tatsumi
The Mabinogion
These six works capture the range of things that I would like to write about. These are not writers writing the pulp, the epic world-catacylmic event. They are localized works focusing on people but with a touch of the magical to many of their works.
Kuroac has that hipster thing going. I enjoy reading On the Road regularly since it captures the feeling of being on the road. Of being with friends. Of embracing chaos and change and disorder. The style is semi-autobiographical. It's driven by the characters.
Murakami has the slight magical-realism and technology. The works are post-modern. He embraces technology, but doesn't fetishize it like hard Science Fiction but rather explores just how truly weird modern technology really is. I would like to write about the online community. The online zeitgeist. The feeling of being imersed in online culture while being rural and far from the urban enclaves.
Kawabata writes short stories. Focused very much on place. Painting quite, but provocative pictures. I would like to write stories that are seemingly of nothing, but still capture the very heart of the now. I would like to write about the pandemic. About experiencing so much radical change but from the quiet calm of the campsite.
Asano Inio comes off as nihilistic. His works, like Murakami are post-modern, infused with magical realism despite being set contemporarily. They are character studies of mental health and life in this century.
Tatsumi is a realist. He focuses on the stench of life. I like the idea of fusing the realist and magical-realist tensions. Writing people with all of their flaws. Focusing on the gritty aspects of life. Noir, I would approach, although I watch noir and rather do not like the novels labelled noir.
The Mabinogion, that ancient Welsch work is the eptimity of Fantasy. I would love to write stories in the same vein, set not in romanticized medieval settings, but in the present world, using real places, people and things.
I would like to explore consciousness in my works. Zen. The relationships between nature, humanity, magic, and technology. Explore Solarpunk aesthetics, hacker culture and it's relationship to hipster culture. I suppose I see my works as series, not comedies or satires. Certainly not cynical or ironic.
Miyazaki also comes to mind -- particularly Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa.
External References
- Luca,s Michael W. Domesticate Your Badgers. Tilted Windmill Press, 2022.