How Do You Make that Backwards Я?

One of the questions I am asked about NEVЯLAND is–How the hell do you make that backwards “R”?

First, it’s not actually an “R”. It’s the Russian letter Я–pronounced YA. It’s also the first person singular pronoun “I” in Russian.

And I make Я with a simple mouse click that switches my English keyboard setting to a Russian keyboard setting on my Mac (PC can do it, too).

Mac has an upper task window, and my window shows an American flag to tell me I’m using the English keyboard setting.

When I want to type Russian letters, I click on the American flag, a drop menu appears with a Russian flag in it. I then click on the Russian flag, and VOILA! My keyboard is transformed into a Russian keyboard.

(Not the actual letters printed on the keys, of course–I have a picture of a Russian keyboard taped to my wall to show me where the Russian letters are located as if I were using a real Russian keyboard.)

Once I type Я, I click on the Russian flag in my Mac’s upper task window, click on the American flag in the drop down menu, and I’m back to using the English keyboard setting.
On the Russian keyboard, the Я letter is where the English letter Z is located.

As I typed the outline for the first book, I had to come up with a NAME for the book and the series.

I must have a NAME when I write a book as the NAME suggests a theme for me and helps keep me focus.

The title NEVERLAND came quite easily, but I didn’t like the way it looked.

I played around the the spelling:

NEVRLAND

NEVRLAN

NVRLND

And none of them felt right. I continued outlining.

So, I’m plotting Chapter Three: Laynie, who has witnessed the hysterical chaos that has taken over Junebug and is horrified by the death of a couple of children, is determined to ride her bike out of Junebug to her grandmother’s farm about three miles outside of town.

However, in her panic, she forgets about the invisible wall surrounding the city and imprisoning the children.

She peddles up to the city limits at full speed and crashes into the invisible barrier. She’s thrown forward. Her head slams into the invisible wall, and she’s knocked out.

As she regains consciousness, she hears a hissing sound and a terrible metallic sharp odor assails her nostrils.

When she’s fully awake, she sees Cassie, a classmate from Junebug Junior High spray painting in the air–and the letters are hanging in the air on the invisible wall.

Cassie is a mainstreamed special education student classified as an Idiot-Savant who is a genius at math but has little to no social or verbal skills.

She likes to listen to audio stories, though, and her favorite story is Peter Pan.

She tells Laynie that a Blue Fairy has visited Junebug during the night and has taken all the adults away, including her parents.

Laynie realizes that Cassie is confusing two stories: Peter Pan and Pinocchio.

Pinocchio features the Blue Fairy, a motherly figure who helps Pinocchio become a real boy.

As Laynie walks away from Cassie and her “painting on the air”, Cassie calls out, “Good-bye. Don’t let the Blue Fairy get ‘cha!”

Laynie turns around and sees what Cassie has written “on the air”, which is
NEVЯLAND

And that’s how the title with it’s Я came about.

The title also reveals a major theme about growing up in a world without adult supervision, much as the children in Peter Pan’s NEVERLAND:

• What kind of “world” would several thousand Children build if they were left to fend and defend for themselves?

Do you have a question about NEVЯLAND or writing in general? Send me your question, and I’ll do my best to get back to you ASAP.

Thanks for your support and encouragement. Although writing is a solitary event, putting a novel together is a collaborative effort–and I’m getting all sorts of great advice and encouragement from friends, new and old, as well as fellow writers.

See you on the bookshelves,

Larry Mike Garmon

Unblurring My Religion

Pablo Picasso said, “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

Right now, I'm in the process of unblurring spots--the jargon is "pre-writing", "outlining", "brainstorming", "fleshing out the story", "freewriting".

I've reached a point in my YA fantasy Barmaglot where the story has taken over the writing, and I'm little more than the fingers ticking the letters on the keyboard. Although I like the story very much and am quite pleased with the story, I'm pretty much done as far as the "writer" aspect is concerned.

This happens to me as I complete a project.

And my mind begins to grasp at the straws of creativity because it's doing little more than perfunctory work at this point.

And any straw will do, really.

I'm never at a loss for ideas. I stub my toe in the dark of morning, and before the pain reaches mid-throb, a whole novel flashes through my head about a guy stubbing his toe in the dark of morning and what kind of day he is about to experience.

But, straws of inspiration do not bricks of Story make. And I know this. Ideas are ideas and not Story.

Sometimes, though, a blade of straw stabs me as if it were thrown by an Oklahoma tornado and impales me with an idea that just won't let go.

That's where I'm at now. As Barmaglot heads to its destined conclusion, I'm impaled by an idea for my next Story.

And I don't call this phase of my writing "pre-writing", "outlining", "brainstorming", "fleshing out the story", "freewriting".

For me, it's unblurring my religion.

It's not a question of talent or determination or desire or even time.

It's a question of faith.

Story first appears to me in blurry visionary form with only crumbs of character here, snippets of scene there, and smidgens of story everywhere all floating around in the amniotic fluid of creativity.

All these little yellow spots dancing and swirling around me. Little yellow spots that require my art and my intelligence to be transformed into Sun, into Story.

One Story focuses itself into crystal clarity and another Story starts to focus itself, to unblur the spot into Sun.

And I'm at my happiest because this is where Story is revealed-- a process of discovery and revelation in the truest senses of those words. I am John of Patmos sitting in my lonely cave with the vision of the divine wrapping itself around me.

The genius of Story is not in how much a writer does, but in how little. The work of a sublimely confident writer is not to include a single word to simply keep the reader's attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and keeps the reader there just long enough for the reader to contemplate it, to inhabit it in the imagination. Story is not concerned with thrilling the reader, but with inspiring the reader with awe and wonder.

To turn the yellow spot into Sun.

See you on the bookshelves.

Larry Mike Garmon

Description or Scenework: The Paradox of Story Telling

Description vs. Scenework. Hmmm . . . .

I've been told since day one of the first creative writing class I took and I pay many dollars a year to attend (and I've been paid many dollars to present at) conferences where I am reminded (and I remind others) ad naseum to write in scenes.

Perhaps if I wrote my scenes the way artists painted Good Girl Art covers for those steamy potboiler pulp novels of the 1950s, I'd be able to quit my day job, eh?

When I write a scene, do I view the scene as though I am writing a textbook or putting on a stage play?

Some tales I've read lately go into great protracted descriptive verbiage as though we, the readers, were sitting in our comfy chairs in our parlors in the 19th Century with no other distractions other than the occasional whippoorwill outside our collective windows and little more to do with our time except read long-winded descriptions of the setting, the characters, the time, et cetera.

I know. I wrote such a scene in my WIP YA fantasy tale “Barmaglot”. Worse yet, it was the opening nine pages!

My eagle-eyed critique partner pointed that out to me. I had written fine protracted purple prose. I was quite proud of my wordmanship and expertise with broadsword sentences and extravagant razor-sharp adjectives.

I should have used a dagger instead—quick, simple, efficient, to the point, and much more deadly, as well as (often) unseen until it’s too late.

I thought I had learned my lesson.

In a WIP short story I’m slicing out now, I had what I thought was a strong, well-written paragraph, but something about it bothered me. I showed it to my teaching partner at school, and she was frustrated with the long paragraph, actually a single 60-word sentence broken up by a serious of commas.

All the commas were used properly and sitting in their proper places.

But the scene was exhausting to read.

“Break it up,” she said.

“You don’t like it? I think it conveys the idea nicely.”

“Well, obviously you think something is wrong with it, or you wouldn’t have shown it to me.”

She was right, of course, as usual.

I went back and broke up the long single 60-word sentence into several short, choppy sentences, and the scene tightened up immediately. It gave the reader a sense of hurried walking, which is what I was trying to do with the elongated sentence.

I love the theatre and acting and plays. I’ve written a couple of one-act dramas and still envision a play I’ve written being performed in regional theatre and then on off-off Broadway and then off Broadway and, finally, on Broadway! (Dream big or don’t dream at all.)

After the experiences of my critique partner and my teaching partner, I realized I needed to approach a scene in my novels and short stories the way I would approach a scene in a stage play—action and dialogue to move the story forward and avoid long rambling description, prolonged narrative, and extensive character exposition.

If the scene doesn't play out on stage, it doesn't play out on paper.

Description is necessary in telling a story in written form as a reader only views the setting, characters, and actions through the written word, unlike a stage play or movie.

However, the 19th and early 20th Centuries are long gone and buried with them are the multitude of paragraphs and proliferation of pages of protracted descriptive prose.

Today’s readers just won’t sit through such verbiage. Unless they are being held hostage on the tarmac of a shut-down airport or spending a very long two-day weekend with in-laws they prefer to see as victims of a major crime.

I’ve striving to achieve a happy medium: description with an emphasis on scenework rather than description apart from scenework. The two must be imbued as much as possible if the story is to move along and keep the reader engrossed and entertained and turning those pages and buying my next Great American Novel.

From now on, I'm using a dagger when I write my scenes rather than a broadsword. Using a dagger rather than a broadsword when writing scenes allows me to sneak in the bladed information before my victim (my reader) knows what has happened.

See you on the bookshelves.

Take care,
Larry Mike Garmon