Time for another confession (a thousand thanks, dear readers, for being my mental dumping ground): Unlike many writers, I haven’t always wanted to be one.

*Gasp*

*A girl in the back row faints* 

Allow me to explain.

Growing up, I devoured books, but I LOVED movies. Star Wars, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, Indiana Jones, The Neverending Story (which I watched so many times, my parents dubbed it ‘The Neverending Movie’). I couldn’t get enough. Most young film-o-philes aspire to be movie stars. Not me. Sure, you get to be rich and famous, but you were at the mercy of someone else’s creative vision (even back then, I had control issues). I wanted to be at the helm. I wanted to be The Director.

I clung to this dream throughout elementary and middle school. Of course, I had no concept of what a director did, but I knew they were respected just by listening to how people said “Steven Spielberg” or “George Lucas” (remember, it was pre-Episode 1). By high school, I swam too many hours of the day to direct anything, but I still had it in my head as a passion. Finally, my senior year rolled around and I took it as my final shot. I submitted an original play (don’t ask) for the student directed show series and – somehow – got selected (really, don’t ask). Suddenly, I actually was The Director.

We don’t need to discuss how the play went because, honestly, I was too nervous to watch any of the performances (btw, my mom still raves about its brilliance). Regardless of the quality, I confirmed what I already knew: I had to be The Director. Except, the next autumn, I went to college – for engineering. And the grueling nature of Thermodynamics, P-Chem, and Differential Equations combined with lack of directing experience/training kept me from my calling. After graduating…well, it’s hard figure out how to make directing a hobby when you have a serious girlfriend (soon to be wife) and spend most your time designing medical devices. Plus, there’s a lot of people deeply involved in the community theater who are far, far more qualified. I gave up the dream. My days of being The Director were over.  

But, as with most artists who’ve gotten their first hit, I still needed to create. And, like Talia and Donna, I dabbled in the fine arts. However, I stopped dabbling in them a few hours later, more frustrated than fulfilled.

Then I started to write. And it blew my mind.

Not only could I be The Director, but an all-controlling god. I created worlds. Characters had to do what I told them. I conjured sights, sounds, and smells – even tastes – from nothing. It went beyond mere story because I knew once I got good enough, I could make my audience laugh or cry or get their hearts pumping. My writing opened up that same primal facet that The Director longed for, but with a force I never thought possible.

The more I write, the more I realize how close it is to directing. All the same rules apply: If there’s a gun on stage, then somebody shoot it; no character is truly minor and even the walk-on bellman needs a motive; trick the audience into thinking the set pieces are bigger than they truly are…I could keep going, but you get the idea.

After finally coming up with my angle on this blog topic, I got re-inspired.  I unpacked my old how-to-direct textbooks in hopes they’ll enrich my storytelling skills. I think it’ll be a gold mine of ways to construct better plots, tighter structures, and fuller characters with unconventional methods.

Turns out, I am pursuing my childhood dream, after all – just in a different permutation than little-Bret imagined. Who knew that my quest to be The Director would lead me to what I really am: The Writer. 

This week, we've been talking about artistic influences in our writing. I have to confess -- the topic was my idea. Art plays a huge part in my writing process.

I've been drawing, painting, sculpting since I was a child. As an adult, I studied oil painting seriously and worked for a time as an artist, selling works on commission. I love painting. Give me a blank canvas, fresh tubes of paint, my favorite brushes, music playing and hours ahead of me, and I guarantee you will see my soul smiling.

When I started writing eight years ago, I started at square one. What I brought to the page was years of analyzing composition, color, brush stroke. I knew to step back and look at the overall canvas, and to get close, to see the tiniest details. I knew there were many technical things I'd need to learn, and I also knew that, at a certain point, writing would be about letting go and believing in magic.

My background has made me a visual writer. When I create a scene, setting and tone are important. My goal is to make the page (or screen) fade away, and bring images to life.

On an applied, quantifiable level, many works of art either inspired, or were featured in UNDER THE NEVER SKY. Both Van Gogh's Starry Night and Munch's The Scream were inspiration pieces for the Aether storms in the story. (Munch, I believe, said he was painting the infinite scream of nature, which is chilling and fabulous, isn't it?) Bernini's sculpture, Pluto and Persephone, appears at the end of a lighted alcove, as does a lesser-known Matisse drawing. When I think of a certain character, I see him through a Lucian Freud lens: pensive, sprawling and flawed. When I think of another, I see him as a Bernini sculpture: embodying athleticism, intensity and movement. Art is my language as much as words are.

I would like to crawl into a Picasso. A Rembrandt. A Dali. A Caravaggio. I would like for their paintings to be worlds I could step into, but I can't. What I can do, in story, is bring them to life in my own way.

If you haven't already, hop over and check out my new blog. I'm giving a signed UNDER THE NEVER SKY ARC over there. If you missed out on an UNDER THE NEVER SKY ARC in the YA Muses Blogoversary contest, here's another chance. Stop on by!

We're talking about how art influences writing this week, and I must admit that this topic terrifies me.  I am analytical, methodical, corporate.  Art and I are still in the getting to know you stage after a few false starts.

My initial forays into the art world were largely unmitigated disasters.

*  There was the etched glass project in art class with a central image that looked more like a pile of doggee doo than a campfire. Easy A?  Right.  That class almost kept me from getting into college.

*  There was the Art History class in college (I made it- that will show you Art!) in which I managed to wake myself (and 300 other students) during a lecture by snoring so loud my head shook.  To be fair, the university should think twice before scheduling a 2:00 p.m. class that involves a dark room and slide presentations.

*  Then there were the Christmas cookies that were so pathetic I lied and said my small children decorated them when passing them out to neighbors.

Yeah, me and Art were off to a slow start.

But then, there was the year I decided I needed a hobby.  I spent two hours in Michael's and came out with a bag full of watercolors, paint brushes and paper.  I had no training, no technique and no clue.  And I painted.

A weird thing happened.  I was inspired.  I dub it my silly-animals-doing-silly-things phase. Collectors take note:  only four paintings survived.  One is hanging proudly in my parent's living room above the couch.  The second belongs to my sister.  My ex's parents might still have the third (or it may be out there somewhere-waiting to be discovered).  The fourth is the painting on the right.  I labeled it "At the Barre."  When the movers came to pack up our house, they labeled it "Child's Artwork."

So what?  So what if my art looked like a nine year old's school project?  I learned something from the process.  Art isn't about talent.  It's about inspiration.  Creation.  Filling the empty spaces inside.  Surprising yourself.  Art is taking risks even if the result is less than perfect.  It means never being afraid to try something new.

And having fun.

That's what I try to take with me into writing, the sheer joy of creation. The wonderful surprises that your characters spring on you just when you think you know exactly what's going to happen. Art is about discovery.  Seeing the world from a different perspective.

And so Art and I have a made a tentative peace.  I no longer despise it.  It doesn't put me to sleep.  I'm not intimidated by it either.  Art is just me letting my subconscious play.

This is a photograph taken in Monterey a few years ago.  It was a happy accident that the waves broke just as I snapped a shot of my daughter leaning into the wind, but the combination of movement and stillness in the picture perfectly captures the teen experience to me:  Something is coming that you can't stop.  It's overwhelming and beautiful and scary and inevitable.




 Art and I had a rough start, but I think this might be going somewhere.  We'll have to see.







 

In another life, when I was a freshman and sophomore at college, I studied to be a costume designer.  We began with fabric. We learned about texture, how fabrics look beneath harsh stage lights. We learned how they capture light, how they absorb it, how they reflect it. We learned how fabrics drape, where they fold, whether they crease. I learned to love the gossamer shadow of sheer silk, the nonreflective bulk of wool felt, the sumptuous hang of rich damask.

We spent weeks studying the flow of fashion history. We watched skirts lengthen, widen, and shorten and almost disappear. We followed the constriction of the female form as bodices were stiffened and caged and eventually created from slats of whalebone that pressed the organs inward and upward and contributed to the myth that women are weak and feeble and faint at the slightest provocation. We learned that men have not always had it easy in the fashion world. That trends once tightened toes into long curling tips of shoes that once made walking difficult and running near impossible. We delighted in the fact that fashion has always tried to heighten or minimize certain aspects of the anatomy in both sexes. Wide hips, huge bums, broad shoulders.

We learned how to draw figures. But more importantly we learned how to clothe those figures. My renderings were never particularly adept. I never learned how to draw face that I liked, how to draw hands, or how to create a figure that wasn't wisp thin. But I learned how to fill in shadow to produce a fold and how to indicate a seam.

We were taught that color and shape and texture and movement all unknowingly contribute to an audience's perception of the character. Bellatrix LeStrange would never wear pink chiffon. Juliet shouldn't wear black crepe in her opening scene. Holden Caulfield is not the sort who would dress in yellow tweed. When a character steps onto the stage in a crimson satin evening gown with a plunging neckline, you assume certain characteristics about her. When the main character opens the upstage center door to reveal a man and top coat tails, you expect a certain manner, and speech, and movement.

It's the same with the character in a novel. We have to know how a character moves, how he acts under intense light. We have to know her history, how tightly she's laced, what she does to accentuate the positive and diminish the negative. As a writer, we can leave certain aspects of the character up to the imagination of a reader. We don't have to provide every clue about her hands, or every detail of her face. But we need to ensure that the reader’s first impression of the character is accurate. We have to lay enough of a foundation to be able to build an entire novel based around it.

Costume design is an art.  It is one that I admire immensely when I see a play or watch a movie. And what my short time as costume designer taught me is invaluable to my writing.  I’m very fortunate that I write about a time period in which costume played an important part of daily life, because I can venture back into my former life, and submerge myself again in silk and damask, in fine embroidery and intricate lace, and in the way color reflects personality.

Yes, you read that right! Winners. Keep reading, and you'll see why.

A few weeks ago, we began a contest to celebrate one year of blogging together. The prize? A signed ARC of UNDER THE NEVER SKY--among the very first to venture out into the wild world.

Thank you to all who helped us celebrate. We had almost 500 entrees into the contest! Your responses, comments and tweets were so wonderful that giving away one ARC just didn't feel like enough. So, through a random number generator and much tallying of followers, comments and tweets, our two winners are IceyBooks and Elizabeth Briggs!

Congratulations to both of you, and thanks to all those who entered. If you would like to read UNDER THE NEVER SKY pre-publication, it will be offered through NetGalley. I'll let you know as soon as it's available here or on twitter.

Finally, on behalf of all the Muses, our deepest thanks for helping us commemorate this milestone!

Cheers!

The art world has always been a mystery to me. That part of my education was sorely lacking. Picasso's blue period? Monet's watercolors? Van Gough's ear? Abstract vs. Realistic? Walking through a gallery, leaves me slightly intimidated, but mostly confused. Is this painting good? What makes it good? Combine that lack of knowledge with a complete lack of any artistic talent, and you have me. My parents hung my sister's artwork on the wall in the den. They put mine, after carefully praising the effort, under the bed.

I did try. Truly I did. Once I took this pottery class (right after I saw the movie GHOST). Not only did Patrick Swayze NOT appear to coat me in sexy mud while humming a Righteous Brothers song in my ear, but I was by far the worst student in the class. My pottery mug looked more like the cow patties lying out in the field by my grandmother's house (But I still stubbornly drank coffee from it until it "broke" six months later). Although I've finally let go of that particular personal expectation of the artist life, I still fulfill my artistic cravings for expression. For me, though, it's not going to happen with paint or pottery. I create through words, not in mud, and that's a good thing for everyone involved.

So, how do other kinds of art inspire my writing? It was an interesting question the Muses posed for this week's blog topic. To answer it, I looked around at the pictures I surround myself with in my own home and I quickly identified a theme. A couple of years ago, I began buying pieces of art when I traveled--picking up images to remind me of the place and the trip. In the dining room, there's this lovely long stretch of sandy beach from Hawaii. On the staircase, a skewed color burst of a house that is the craziness of New Orleans (see photo above). In my bedroom, a collection of small prints featuring bright Caribbean flowers and ocean views. In my study, a grouping of prints of Napa vineyards. Every time I glance at one of these paintings or prints, I'm instantly back in that setting--hearing the music of New Orleans, smelling the salty sea air of Hawaii, or seeing the burst of colors from Tortula.

The art that inspires me most connects me to place and that's exactly what I hope I accomplish with my writing as well. I want someone reading through a paragraph to instantly be transported to the colors, sounds, and smells of that moment in my story. The writing is my narrative snapshot of an image I want to linger in the minds of a reader long after they've come home from my book.

So what inspires you?