More Than a Blog Title...

It's a lifestyle.

Besides, it was my birthday!

Danger State

CS Harris had quite the terrifying near-miss today. Odd creatures that we are, throughout the danger she's got her writer's hat on, posing this question:

So how do writers of books filled with shootings, explosions, chases, etc, avoid falling into cardiopulmonary hyperbole while still giving readers a realistic description of the effect of these incidents on their characters?

When the human animal is placed in perceived danger (I don't know about you, but my heart started racing when I saw that graphic up top!), two squidgy sacs on top of the kidneys dump adrenaline and noradrenaline (also called norepinephrine) into the bloodstream. For a good description of the physical effects: read this article. For a good description of the mental effects, you might try this one. Since this is neither an anatomy lesson nor a psychological one, I'm going to stick with write-about-able descriptions.

In my experience, there are three main sorts of perceived danger, each with different reactions:

Sudden danger: Anything from a car crash or mugging to someone jumping out of a closet and going 'BOO'. When you are in sudden danger, the adrenaline dump is sudden and complete. Time slows. Perception brightens and intensifies, but memory fragments and distorts. Pain ceases to exist. Our bodies may react without our brains being engaged. Or we may find ourselves unable to react at all. More on that later.

Do NOT write about the pounding heart in these moments. Yes, that noble pump is indeed working hard in these moments. Your blood pressure is likely to be through the roof. Thing is, you're not likely to be aware of it. Those of our ancestors who reacted to the bear attack by jumping into trees or yelling and swinging sticks survived to reproduce. Those who stood there going, 'wow, heart hammering in Ogg's chest' did not.

So what's a writer to do?

-Write instead about the time slow (a neurochemical effect).

-About the cold skin and numb lips (as blood flees the skin for the skeletal muscles).

-About the sudden bright colors (pupil dilation and neurochemistry both), or the way color will tend to blue at the edges of vision.

-I have often had black spots crowd at my periphery and the sensation of blood slowly thumping in my ears. Slowly? Yeah: my pulse might have been over 180, but with your time-sense shaved down to zillionths of a second, everything's going slowly!

Aftermath: Your body idles down. That sudden racing heart gradually returns to normal. Your brain reacquires the ability to perceive past and future (fear and rage are all about the present!) and struggles to make sense of what just happened. You begin paying your oxygen debt - with interest. And the shakes, oh yes, the shakes...

Persistent Danger: Think back to every child's favorite game of predator and prey, tag. Whether you're it or not it, you're in a heightened adrenalized state for an extended period. Your body adjusts, and it also feels the effects of the effort.

Chasing or being chased, be it in a car, on a sports field or through a misty wood in the middle of the night) our bodies are in a sustained and heightened adrenaline state. If Sudden Danger is the equivalent of nitrous oxide on our metabolic engines, Persistent Danger is like running at the top end of the tach in every gear. The effects are still there, but not as pronounced.

THIS is the place for that pounding heart, and that struggle for breath. Sudden Danger, you don't know what the effort cost until it's over. Persistent Danger, your body's having to pay as it goes, muscles starving for oxygen and drowning in their own acids. How much you can pay (how long you can stay in this state) depends on what kind of shape you're in. A professional rugby or soccer player can run up and down the field for two hours straight. An overweight and sedentary smoker might keel over running down the block.

Aftermath: Sore and burning muscles (those acids) and a milder case of the shakes are pretty normal. How much or how little depend on how prepared you are for these sorts of events.

Perceived Danger: Remember hide and seek? Hunkered down in your hiding place, knowing the predator was coming, knowing that at any moment you might have to burst into action?

Your metabolic engine was racing hard, but you were stuck in neutral. All that adrenalin was pinging around your system, but there was nowhere for it to go. Couldn't fight, couldn't flee. But you had to be ready for both.

Sadly, too many of us live in this state. I mean, it's one thing if you live in a war zone where snipers and land mines are a constant danger, but for most of us the dangers we work ourselves into a froth over are illusory: being late, not ticking off items on a 'to-do' list, anything that happens in an office.

Aftermath: In a way, this is the most dangerous possible adrenalin state. Your body is marvellously adaptable, and if you convince it that you are in constant danger, it will adapt, and you will pay. High blood pressure, ulcers and heart disease on the physical side and post-traumatic stress on the mental.

One more important thing about writing the adrenaline:

Personalities: One important word was perceived danger. Life prepares us for different kinds and levels of stress. The severity of our adrenalin boost is moderated by how badly we think we need it.

Also, some people simply react differently. Some instinctively fight, some instinctively flee. And some instinctively freeze and hide. I think evolution gives gives us this range, so that whichever is appropriate keeps the race going.

Training and repeated exposure can influence these reactions, turn what might be a big shock to one person into pretty normal for another. But when a new shock is faced, that primal instinct may kick in. A fireman running into a burning building will be in a heightened state, but (let us all hope) he or she won't be freaking out. On the other hand, that same fireman finds a homeless person frozen to death in their doorway, the reaction might be quite a bit different.

Wells, Filled and Otherwise

Shauna posted recently about 'filling the well'. To be honest, it's a term I only started hearing a couple of years ago when I started spending time with writers.

The idea seems to be that creativity is a cool liquid, of which we drink deeply. Sometimes, a project can leave us feeling drained. Times like that, we need to stop drinking and let others' waters replenish our own.

At least, I think that's the idea. It's one of those things folks tend to talk about as though everyone else already knows. I've had to pick the metaphor up on the run.

I get the feeling writers expect to approach their new project with a well filled to the brim with sparkling ideas. With every day's work, the bucket has to dip just that little bit deeper. A few I know fear that one day they 'go to the well' and hear nothing but a dry thunk.

Me, I don't like this metaphor so much. It's so.....

passive.

If I have a well of ideas, its a bloody great artesian thing.

I'm a productive guy: I write a novel or two a year. Do maybe a dozen, two dozen paintings. Fill a couple of sketchbooks and occasionally bring a little extra spark to my gentle whoredom in the tattoo studio. I don't lower a bucket and hope to find something. For me, it's about not being knocked down by the spray.

So what do I do to stay creative?

1. Distrust Mood: I had the great good fortune to have the idea of a 'creative mood' drummed out of me early on. Stephen King puts it nicely in this article, where he suggests the muse is most likely to find you if you're already sitting there working.

2. Care for Your Tools: I keep my pencils sharp, my brushes soft, my pens inked, my typewriter oiled and my laptop clean. I also eat pretty well and stay in reasonable shape. I know painters who wouldn't dream of letting paint sludge dry on their brushes, but they do nothing to care for the hand and arm and brain doing the work.

3. Permission to Fail: By definition, every day cannot be our best. That's okay, no big deal. The more we practice our arts, the better we get. The better our 'average' becomes. I find it helpful to accept that today's work might suck, then get on with it.

4. Blood to Brain: Thinking burns glucose. It also requires oxygen, and the clearing of waste products. How does all that happen? Yup, blood flow.

When I feel blocked during a work session, I charge up the old heart. These days I have a heavy bag behind the house, and whaling on it feels great. Before the bag, I'd do pushups or situps. I'm often surprised at how a quick shock of activity like that will clear those blockages.

5. Sidestep: I like to jump around in different media. Even the ones I'm bad at. As long as it gives me a little bit of fun, what's the harm?

In fact, a sidestep was how I started writing in the first place. One of the reasons I started down this road was that I was doing an enormous amount of work-for-hire drawing comics. It was great fun, and I was forced to stretch my art in ways I never would have otherwise tried, but... I missed telling my own stories. Doing two comics at once was so time-consuming it was out of the question, so I sat down and wrote a novel. And another. And....

And lastly, COFFEE: I drink a lot of coffee. A lot.

Even when I'm going down a wrong turn, I get there quickly.

Those Magic Moments

98,500 words

Yup, those magic... SUDOKU moments. I've had a few days of wheel-spinning, something's-wrong-here puzzlement. Now I know why.

Better yet, I know how to fix it.

Turns out I wrote my climax and half the denouement last week. So now I'm writing the bits that go before the climax so that I'll know what else needs to go in the denouement and be able to type The End.

That day is coming, and soon!

In other news, we went to Mount Grey, where the souls of the South Island's Maori dead go to start their journey to Cape Reinga and thence to the afterlife.

In our case, a pleasant walk and lovely picnic were had, this life adhered to.

The picnic was at Lake Janet:

Which offers lovely views:

I didn't bring my camera, so had to kype these off the web. Sorry.

Second Honeymoons

77,ooo words (and every one a joy)

I've been suffering through the hard times waiting for this. The Sudoku Moment has been fully unravelled, and I'm once again as excited as a little kid. Tension's really high, things are happening, and I get to be the first one to read about em!

Yesterday I got write to the end of the rewritten chapters and stood with my toes hanging out over the edge of the new stuff. The Tiny Dynamo was at work, and I had the house to myself.

Oops. Temporary block.

Ah well, I hopped on Old Coppertop (my much-battered elderly mountain bike) and rode the 10k into town. I'm not the sort who can exercise for the hell of it. Elliptical trainers, stationary bikes and treadmills all make me think of hampster wheels, and just, you know, riding the hell around strikes me as more or less pointless.

So I 'invent' errands. This one involved how very, very badly I needed to repurchase my favorite Social Distortion album. I've had maybe four or five copies of the damn thing, but every time I lend it out of my sight, it's gone again. I don't mind, not really, but it *does* mean I keep buying the same few things over and over and over again. It's all just stuff.

Except I couldn't just buy that album. No, I saw an old Love and Rockets that some girl spirited away in the wee hours one morning and had to have that as well. And then there was some new stuff: Chixdiggit, Deisel Boy and one I didn't have by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. If you haven't checked those guys out yet, they're great fun.

Exercise is expensive.

By the time I got home, I knew where I was going and, ass safely and firmly wedged in Lazy Boy (how'd they know to name it after me?), I went there.

Except there's still more there to go to, and I wrote til I fell down last night. So it's back up early for more of the good stuff. Ooh yeahhhhh... Straight in the vein, baby.

I have to get back to it, because the Tiny Dynamo won't tolerate being a writer's widow today. The sun's out, and I've been threatened with tennis. My lanky reach really should put me at an advantage, but the Dynamo is so damn small and darty.

It's like playing against a cloud of leprechauns!