hello from the middle of the night

Hello to my lovely writerly types, innocent bystanders, and those of you who wandered here by mistake. Unlike Bobbie Riedel, who began her introduction with an interesting question, I have no intriguing tidbit to offer you. I'm afraid I don't even have an introduction, not really, and am only making this up as I go along.

To begin:
My name is Megan. I'm a dancer, currently taking classes at the magnificent San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and going to auditions when I can. I work at Kepler's, mainly in the evenings when I'm not dancing, and write stories. Or try to write stories. My imagination tends toward the odd, the specific, the unlikely, and things that make shortcuts in your brain by pretending to be impossible.

(this is me)

Some writers who have left indelible marks in my head:
Neil Gaiman, Ian McEwan, Kelly Link, Rudyard Kipling, Kazuo Ishiguro, Arthur Conan Doyle, George MacDonald, Haruki Murakami, Philip Pullman, Angela Carter, P.G. Wodehouse, and Jane Austen.
(If any of them are strangers to you, I would be happy to share zealous recommendations.)

Some things I like to write about:
Ghosts, magic tricks, levitation, glass conservatories, shadows, orange trees, illusions, ordinary people, weird people, things turning into other things, and dangerous art.

I didn't write seriously until last summer, when I went to the Clarion workshop in San Diego. Before that, stories were something that other people made so I could enjoy them. Six weeks of writing stories and reading other stories in a mad, desperate rush, all while surrounded by a group of blisteringly talented people and guided by brilliant teachers, made me realize that stories are something I like to make as well as consume.

It was a comforting discovery. Stories make me happy and writing them is, if not always easy or fun, at least very, very interesting. I'm not very good at putting them together yet, and sometimes I feel like I'm poking my fingers into the cage of a supper-deprived lion... but taking something out of my head, without being sure of what it is or how it's shaped, and putting it on paper so I can find out fills my head with slow-motion fireworks.

A miniature something (my but she carries on, you say!):

Giants

Giants are invisible these days. Back when stories mixed up with history and everything else, giants were enormous, lumbering beings who could pick up a house the way we pick up a box of books.

Back then, giants would stand still for days in a field, just to watch the birds fly around their legs.

Now, they are invisible and they live in the woods, or in the mountains, and sometimes the birds crash into them and fall down in a daze. A giant never knows when another giant lives nearby because, just as we can’t see them, they can’t see each other. They could call out, but it has been so long since they’ve spoken that they’ve forgotten the etiquette of conversation.

They are also a little afraid that nobody will be there to answer, so they stand still and sleep, and have dreams about what they used to look like.

Wait. I do have a question!

When something to write occurs to you (story, poem, essay, or whatever), how does it appear? Does it come in images? Is it like watching a movie? Do you slip into someone's skin? Is it all words, tasty and movable? What is it like to be you, wandering somewhere unmarked?

Characters, Give Me Characters

Here's my question for my fellow writers: How do you create characters that pop?

You know, those compelling characters in a novel or story that you love and never want to leave. What are your writing techniques that draw your readers to your characters?

Aggie in her recent post wrote about the psychological landscape of a character, and asked how a writer portrays that inner landscape. My question: is that always necessary? Can you create compelling characters without this complex mental state?

This is the aspect of writing that I struggle with the most: characters, bringing them alive on the page, pulling the reader into their world. On the other hand, I find writing descriptions the easy part of the craft. I love putting beautiful words on the page, using the senses, creating images.

The rock rose high off the plains like a Hawaiian wave he ached to surf, ribbons of red coursing its grainy texture. He felt the pull of the rock, anxious to begin. Let’s go, Jeremy’s voice whispered.

Tim ran the palm of his hand along the sandpaper surface. Placing the toe of his shoe in a small indentation, barely more than a pockmark on an acned face, he started to climb. He felt like an infant navigating a grand staircase. The sun beat at this back. Warm beads of sweat trickled under his t-shirt. His flexed muscles kept him pinned to the cliff’s face. He reached the top, a landing heading off to nowhere, and looked back across the horizon, his blue pickup little more than an oddly-placed pixel in a picture against the red and beige background.

That's the start of a short-short I wrote called "The Grand Staircase." I took up fiction writing nearly three years ago as a way to use my creativity, to create balance in my life, and because I love books and literature.

Sherman Alexie's "The Toughest Indian in the World" is one of the best short stories I've read; I thought about it for two weeks after reading it the first time. John Steinbeck is among my favorite authors; East of Eden and "The Red Pony" two of my particular favorites. Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop), Charles Dickens (Great Expectations), Shakespeare (the complete works).

But I have to say my favorite book of all times is Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I've read it cover-to-cover three times, and pieces of it five times. Of course it comes back to the characters. I love them all: Nannie, the old curmudgeon Garnett, Deanna, Eddie Bondo, Lusa. They feel like old friends. I'm always sad to say goodbye to them when I turn the last page. But beyond the characters, I marvel at the construction of the novel - three parallel yet intertwined stories told during the same summer - and the message that all life is interconnected. Most of all, I love the lush, sensuous, lyrical writing. The wonderful descriptions. The way it reads like a song.

I majored in English as an undergraduate at Stanford. After a brief stint as a technical editor, I found my way to software, going back to graduate school for a masters in computer engineering along the way.

These days, on any given work day, I can be found telling people what to do. Technically, it is not really telling. My upbringing by an ex-Air Force officer father of German descent put me off the direct approach to task masterdom. My approach is more suggestive – a Socratic method to project management. "Has the requirements document been released?" "Will design finish this week?" Team members unlucky enough to have their tasks hit the critical path are likely to hear the three dreaded words, "I am concerned."

When not keeping projects on track, I write short stories and give my time away to women's organizations pushing the equality envelope. I have dreams of publishing a book of stories, and working on a Presidential candidate's campaign. Until dreams come true, I can be seen power-walking my Palo Alto neighborhood, usually headed to the nearest Peet's for a sinfully delicious chai latte. Or hanging out at Kepler's, the best bookstore in the world.