Archive for July, 2020

writing

I Want

I thought I was just about done with this book, aside from one final proofread before sending it to a copyeditor, but I had an epiphany this weekend spurred by a Disney movie.

I’d recorded Moana when ABC showed it a couple of months ago, and this weekend I finally got around to watching it. When the movie got to the big “I want” musical number, I realized what was missing from my book.

Just about every Disney musical has a big musical number near the beginning in which the main character sings about what they want out of life. I don’t know if they did this deliberately in the early days, but modern Disney is well aware of this and has codified the “I Want” song into their process. This isn’t about the story goal — in fact, the character usually sings this song before the story kicks in. It’s about what the character wants out of life, what her deepest desires are. The story provides a way of getting this.

Going back to the beginning, Snow White sings “I’m Wishing,” which is about wanting to find someone who’ll love her. Cinderella sings “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” but it’s not too specific about what she wants, just that she wants something she can’t allow herself to express. Sleeping Beauty has the “I Wonder” song, which is about wanting to find someone to love her.

During the Classic era, we get our first hint of the kind of song that became popular during the revival, with Alice singing “In a World of My Own,” about the place she’d create if she could make a world that would get her away from where she was.

That expanding of horizons became the main theme of the “I Want” songs in the modern era. Ariel sings about wanting to be part of the human world. Belle sings of wanting “adventure in the great wide somewhere.” Rapunzel wants her life to begin. Anna gets the “I Want” song in Frozen, wanting to get outside the palace.

Note that these all take place before they’re caught up in the story. Ariel doesn’t yet know about Ursula’s spell to give her legs (and I don’t think she’s even rescued Eric yet before she sings). Belle doesn’t know anything about the Beast when she sings about what she wants.

And that’s what my book was missing. I didn’t know what my heroine wanted deep down inside, the need that was within her before she stumbled across a mystery she had to solve. I think it was there, to some extent, but making it more explicit and weaving that into the story really adds to the book. There’s more going on with her emotionally. I may have to add that to my process, figuring out what my characters would sing about in their “I Want” song if they were in a Disney musical.

I think the “I Want” bit is also in the Pixar movies, but it’s less obvious because they don’t stop to sing about it. I’m pondering rewatching a couple today for research. I saw the doctor yesterday and got the first shingles shot, so now I’m feeling the aftereffects and I’m not sure I’m up to doing much today. It feels kind of like a mild case of flu (without the respiratory symptoms), but I understand this is far preferable to actually having shingles. I never had chicken pox — that I know of — so this will protect me from that, and if I had a subclinical infection (a case so mild it went unnoticed, but that would explain why I was generally the only kid in the neighborhood who didn’t get chicken pox) then it will protect me from shingles. I guess it’s one benefit of all the medical craziness going on right now that the shingles shots are available when they used to have a waiting list.

Isolating Times

I had a nice little holiday, though it ended up being fairly busy, as my new refrigerator was delivered Friday, and that meant spending Thursday preparing and Friday putting everything back in order. Now I’m going to dive back in to work before I take my next holiday around my birthday in early August. I did a lot of cooking, listened to a lot of classical patriotic music on the radio and on TV, and watched a livestreamed fireworks show.

Now, though, I’m determined to wrap up these mystery books and get them out into the world, and then get the next one written. Three books should establish the series, and then I can space them out a bit more and write a few other things in between those books. I know most of the advice is to have one series with a lot of books, but I already know that’s a recipe for burnout for me. Maybe I can get by with juggling a few different things. July isn’t good for much around here other than huddling indoors, so I might as well spend the time productively. Then maybe in the fall when it’s cooler (and possibly safer to be around people) I can ease up and let myself play some. Right now, there’s no travel from around here to the rest of the country or to most of the rest of the world because I live in a hot zone and I’d have to quarantine for two weeks. I just hope that comes under better control within the next month or so. Even I’m starting to miss people. Not necessarily large groups or people in general, but there are specific people I would like to see in person again. Though it is nice to not have to come up with excuses not to have to go to social events I’m not super keen on.

This summer has reminded me of a summer I had as a kid. The summer between fifth and sixth grades, my mom had a job and my little brother was in nursery school. I was too old for the nursery, and my parents figured I was mature enough to stay home alone. I did have some rules about not having anyone else in the house and needing advance permission to go to anyone else’s house or to leave the neighborhood, but otherwise I was pretty free, and I recall riding my bike to the next village to go to the swimming pool with a friend quite often, so I don’t think permission was denied. And this was in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language! I have fond memories of that summer. While I did go out and do things with friends, I also spent a lot of quiet time at home (since we were in Germany and the weather wasn’t always ideal for going outside). We had one TV channel in English. During the mornings, they showed old TV series like Gilligan’s Island, The Beverly Hillbillies and (my favorite that summer) Daktari. Then there was a block of soap operas, and that’s when I’d go outside or do something else. In the late afternoon, they tended to show British science fiction things, and I believe that was where I first encountered Doctor Who. We went to the library a lot and I had a good supply of books. I also created an entire city for my Barbie dolls in the basement playroom. I completely remodeled the Dream House and built on additional things, and I sewed clothes for my dolls.That was long before the Internet, and even the phone wasn’t an option because they charged by the minute even for local calls. The phone was only for emergencies.

Although I did get a lot of social interaction when I played outside with friends, and my family was home in the evenings and on weekends, that was a lot like the current lockdown. But now at least I have the luxury of Internet access and phone calls. Although the daytime television programming on broadcast TV isn’t as good as the one channel we got then, there’s so much streaming (even though I don’t watch much). In addition to getting books from the library, I can get just about anything I want electronically.

That summer made me very self-sufficient. I learned how to manage my time without any kind of externally imposed structure, and I got good at amusing myself. It was good training for being self-employed and working at home, and it prepared me for this time.