I've been somewhat remiss about making timely, monthly blog entries. It isn't that I haven't been thinking about it -- I do, all the time. I get topics in my head -- "How Come I'm Always Stuck Behind a Landscaping Truck on the Road of Life (Not Necessarily a Metaphor)?", "Smart Girls Can Have Kinky Sex, Too (which is actually not about me, even though I am, I think, no slouch in intellect, and whatever I may choose or not choose to do otherwise is none of your beeswax, by the way)", "Five Gestures Romance Writers Think Are Sexy But Should Quit Using Already (do NOT get me started)".
But the fact of the matter is that if I don't actually blog or write or even speak, if I keep all these ideas somewhere in my cerebellum (or forebrain, I forget which is right), it doesn't matter if any of the ideas above would knock the socks off the world. Nobody knows about them but me.
In any case, I've been a tad overwhelmed and underblogged. At least it feels that way. Things are a little spiral-ly here at the home office. And whether you picture that as an upward spiral (as in tornado) or a downward one (as in drain), neither picture's all that pretty. Things are busy, lines get crossed, messages have slipped.
It's possible this sensation's acute in part because we've gotten another dog. If you ever want to feel as if you're vocally peeing into the wind, get a puppy and try to train it when you've repeatedly only had about three hours' sleep the night before. I do not know why I continue to be surprised when I say, "Raven, don't poop in my flower garden", and she DOES IT ANYWAY. She seemed pretty smart at the pound, so I don't know if all she's hearing is "Raven, blah blah blah" or if she's just being spiteful because I didn't feel like throwing her thirteenth tennis ball (they keep turning up from the last dog, and now you know I never, ever, clean under the hutch in the dining room) for the six thousandth time. I told a neighbor after we got the dog how pleased I was that she'd quickly learned to use the bells we hung on the back door to let us know she wanted to go out. I thought we'd trained her to do something useful. My neighbor said (bless her heart, and you North Carolinians know what I really mean when I say that), "Oh, you mean she's trained YOU to get up every time she rings those bells."
I guess it's a matter of ... interpretation.
Let's try to relate this to writing. Or life, if you're not a writer. Whatever works.
When you write, or even when you speak, you have to assume that the other person reading/listening has no idea what the hell you're talking about. It doesn't mean (you know who you are) you have to speak to someone as if they're stooopid, only that you might be better off providing some context in your story, or saying more than "hunh, almost out of milk". You have to remember your audience.
In the case of writing, you have to picture the scene, present the scene, think of what's going on around your characters and in their heads. You may have to remember what they're wearing, for instance -- I can't tell you how many sex scenes I've edited where the clothing being removed (or not, duh) changed from one moment to the next. I've read characters who take each other out for a meal and then never eat. Like, over multiple days. And not just because they were rushing to remove assorted pieces of clothing -- although that's, you know, possible. One of the characters may seem to get inexplicably cranky, but who can blame them? They're starving.
A common mistake writers make when they read aloud in critique or to their family or friends is to feel compelled to explain something when the other person(s) doesn't get it. You won't be able to do that if you sell the book, or hopefully many books, to complete strangers. You have to write it. If you find yourself saying "I meant this", that means you didn't put it on the page. If you end up repeating yourself, you can always take it out, but if the information isn't there at all, you leave your reader or listeners confused. You leave them in a blank space with characters going "Raven, blah blah blah".
And if somebody says "hunh, almost out of milk" in your house, you should probably ask which one of you is going to go get some and when. Otherwise nobody's happy when it's coffee time or there's a hankering for Frosted Flakes in the middle of the night. I'm just saying. I'll stay away from other, more serious, words left out. Hopefully you get what I mean.
Or do you.
So how do you ensure that what you say gets across, that you've painted a clear picture, that you won't run out of milk?
I'll check back in after I let the dog out. She's ringing those bells again.
