The Snowflake Method for Novels...and short stories

I really like the ideas presented as the Snowflake Method for writing novels. I've been trying to apply them in my own short story writing over the last year. The chief thing I've learned is the importance of developing a very clear idea of what your story is about before setting out to write it...but it's a subtle point. I find I have to experiment a little and do a little writing first.

The best thing to take away from the Snowflake idea, I think, is the concept of interwoven character story lines. You start by creating a storyline for your main viewpoint character, giving that storyline a beginning, several problems/solutions, and a conclusion. Then you do the same thing for all your other major characters, and you look for ways to weave them together. You actively consider the story from the point of view of your antagonist, for example, and make sure that character's actions form a story from his perspective. This is the most valuable technique I've gleaned from the method.

Like a lot of techniques and methods, I'm not following the Snowflake slavishly. It takes novel design to an incredible level of detail. I hope to get there at some point.

I bumped into these ideas from commentary on the National Novel Writing Month website. I love the NaNoWriMo idea. I did it in 2004 and had a blast doing it; I was very proud of completing my 50,000 words of inchoherant prose.

Juggling in a Theremin's Field

Last year, in March, I was able to try out an idea I'd had for a while: to juggle in a Theremin's field. A Theremin is a musical instrument that produces sounds based on your body's interaction with a pair of electromagnetic fields. You wave your hands in the air. You get weird oscillating sounds that will be familiar to you if you have a background in old science fiction movies.

At some point, I decided that I ought to be able to find someone with a Theremin through various contacts. It was easier than I thought it would be: I put the word out on the Texas Juggling Society mailing list, and I got a response from someone who knew someone who played Theremin. The only trouble I had was that it took weeks for us to actually hook up with our varying schedules.

It was a little odd, because the fellow with the Theremin only referred to himself by his e-mail handle, Nobody. And he showed up to my house in an art van, handpainted all over in a brick pattern. But he was in the suburbs on my turf, so it was okay. It was nice of him to come out to my place for the experiment -- I was kind of stapled to the house by the kids; Tanya was out doing something.

"Nobody" was really nice about it. He set the Theremin up and we experimented with it.

The results were...not tremendously exciting. Luckily I wasn't expecting TOO much. I already knew that Theremin are quite difficult to play. The visit confirmed that, in spades.

The Theremin responds to movement of conductive things near its two antennae. That basically means your arms. It puts out a constant wave of sound, and you modulate it by moving your body within its field.

One antenna controls pitch, the other volume. By adjusting dials, you can control, to some extent, the size of the region where your movement affects the device.

Something I didn't know until the experiment was that by default, when the machine is on, you have to keep a hand near the volume antenna or else you get a loud wave. When your hand is low, near the antenna, the Theremin is silent; you raise it to get a note.

Juggling 3 balls cascade-style over the Theremin produced a rhythmic, repeated note. The circular shower pattern produced, naturally, a faster rhythm. Other ball trials resulted in a sine wave sound, when I moved nearer the pitch antenna.

I suspect you could do some neat things with site swaps, but I don't do much with those. I was a bit inhibited by not wanting to drop things on the guy's Theremin.

I quickly learned that for the Theremin, you want to exaggerate your body movements, and that ordinary juggling doesn't produce a lot of response from the machine.

However, it was clear that you could develop an interesting routine that incorporated a Theremin. It would be a fair amount of work, though.

Watching "Nobody" play the Theremin was pretty interesting. He used a technique that looked like he was playing the frets of a string insrument, or fingring a woodwind...seeking out specific notes in midair.

Waving my arms like a conductor over the thing produced some fun sounds, too.

The whole thing sounded much better after he wired in a digital delay. That made everything sound good.

Another free application for Getting Things Done

There's a version of the TiddlyWiki application aimed at implementing the David Allen Getting Things Done task management system. It's called GTDTiddlyWiki.

But I recently read about a similar application -- similar in that it uses AJAX methods to make a client-side application out of an HTML file -- that is simpler and perhaps closer to the spirit of the Getting Things Done method. It's called Next Action.

It's a system for managing one's current to-do list on a computer. Here is a live version that you can try out online:

http://trimpath.com/demos/nextaction_static1/nextaction.htm

Like TiddlyWiki, using it is as simple as saving a copy to your own hard drive.

Wherefore art thou, iPod?

So someone gave me an iPod. I was really not too interested in the MP3 revolution until I tried one out and Saw The Light. It's a fantastic product with a design that rewards fetishism. If an iPod propositioned me, I couldn't reject it out of hand.

But I was busy at the time. Kid and baby stuff and work stuff was too much on my mind, and the iPod was full of someone else's music, and I wanted to offload and preserve that stuff and figure out how to get my own stuff on it. So all that made it a Project, and it was never a high priority one.

Time wore on, I'd dig it out now and then and put it back after playing with it for a while, because of course it was mostly full of rap and country music, and there's only so much of that I want to listen to.

But the baby is sleeping now, and some projects are bubbling up, and now I'm read, nay, eager to work on the iPod. And I can't find it. I remember carefully putting it away somewhere clever before Christmas. But I have no idea where that was.

This always happens when I put something away somewhere clever. I know exactly how I think when this happens. I'll set something in some out-of-the way place, and I'll completely forget about it. Somehow I have to learn to avoid doing that.

But failing that in the iPod's case, I just have to clean the whole house.

UPDATE 2/9/06: Since an English major friend took me to task about "wherefore" actually meaning why, I feel obliged to point out that yes, I know that. And I used it to mean "where" anyway. That's just the kind of devil-may-care, devil-take-the-hindmost, spontaneous sort of person I am.

Chloe Can See to Wisconsin

On our annual road trip to Wisconsin for Christmas in 2003, Chloe starts telling us, from her post in the back seat, that she can see the relatives in Wisconsin. She has super-duper vision, she says; she can see them right now. She has extra power, she can do it.

She's really emphatic about it. When we stop at Denny's for a meal, I challenge her.

"What are they doing right now, then?"

She thinks for a minute, and looks north, accurately as far as I can tell -- she's four years old, I don't think she knows what north is. She says, "They're eating."

And I can't argue with her, because they probably are.

Improv Games

Here's a list of improvisational comedy games. The list describes most of the games in enough detail that you could play them at home:

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sc/games.html

Amazing Giant Robot Costume

I love costumes, but this guy makes me look like a complete poser:

http://triggur.org/costume/mech/

He's got some method of building with foam covered with latex that sounds neat, like it would be both lightweight and durable.

HMS iPod Makes Me Wish for a Press Gang

The Brits' royal navy have unveiled a fancy new ship, described here.
I like the following tidbit from the article:

HMS Daring's 230-strong crew should be happy too. She and her sisters will be the first "gender-neutral" warships to enter Royal Navy service, and the Hotel Facilities, as the living quarters are known, are the most opulent ever fitted in a British warship. Mess decks are replaced by individual cabins, each with their own I-pod charging points, CD player, internet access, five channel recreational audio and larger berths.

I shouldn't tease, though. I mean, it's gender-neutral. I guess that means the author shouldn't have referred to the ship as "she" above.

Priceless

A couple of years ago I was performing in the UT Madrigal Dinner. One of the fellows who handled the lighting had put together this amazing buccaneer costume, with a greatcoat and a big Captain Hook hat with feather. So several of us were in the men's room getting ready for the show, and he's talking about his costume -- how it took him a long time to gather all the pieces and cost a lot of money. He's saying, "$300 for the hat, $70 for the boots, $200 for the coat..."

and I interjected "Getting laid like a pirate: priceless."

I thought it was funny. What? What are you lookin' at?