Amy's Excellent Book Adventures -- Update

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to let you know, my book, A Lever Long Enough, is now available for general purchase. You can buy it on amazon here. You can buy personally autographed copies for no extra cost at the publisher site here.

If you've read Lever and honestly feel you could give it a four or FIVE star review on amazon, would you consider doing so? And for all those who have already written a review, thank you so much! Thank you to all of you, my friends, who have been so kind over the past months.

I've been a bit out of the loop lately but hope to reengage soon, once Lever can be set aside to sink or swim on its own. I'll be posting links to blog reviews etc. -- will be participating in several interviews, and a blog tour February 12.

Have a great day.

The Shape of the Story

My daughter has been learning about Joseph Campbell's *The Hero's Journey* and *The Monomyth* in her classroom, and I've been enjoying reading her notes over her shoulder.

Let me preface my commentary this morning by saying that I think Campbell was quite insightful to have extricated a generalized structure out of myth, and his work was groundbreaking. The rumor is that George Lucas wrote Star Wars with his notepad in one hand and Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces in the other. Campbell certainly discovered a deep truth about story.

Still, I'm struck by just how clunky his *set of rules* is. For a lengthy homework assignment my daughter recently had to fit an already-produced story into the *Monomyth* model. She chose Ironman, one of my current favorites, a beautifully done film that is as classically structured as a fairy tale. And with this just-about-perfectly-structured movie, with the midpoint falling right at the 51 through 54% mark (you can't get much better than that!), she still had to do a little shoe-horning in order to make this movie fit into the following 17 (!) stages:

1. The Call to Adventure
2. Refusal of the Call
3. Supernatural Aid
4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
5. Belly of The Whale
6. The Road of Trials
7. Mother as Goddess
8. Woman as Temptress
9. Atonement with the Father
10. Apotheosis
11. The Ultimate Boon
12. Refusal of the Return
13. The Magic Flight
14. Rescue from Without
15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
16. Master of Two Worlds
17. Freedom to Live

It made me realize why people don't tend to use Campbell's story structure anymore. A common complaint with this model, related to the fact that it IS so rigid, is that the stories produced tend to all look the same. It gets boring after awhile.

I've also studied story structure, but I see story as a fluid thing, not hammered down by any stereotyped *stages* as Campbell does. The posts that I've identified -- such as the inciting incident or the midpoint -- do not have a particular shape, so much as they guide the story to move in a certain direction. Does this make sense? If I draw the analogy of a stream, Campbell places specifically shaped rocks along the path of the water. I'm looking, instead, at the direction the water flows. The event doesn't matter for itself, but rather with how it guides the story. The flow of the story, I've found, is remarkably similar, but the events are infinitely varied.

Very cool stuff, IMHO. Every storyteller has a unique voice and vision that cannot be duplicated. The storyteller must imagine the events truly, as he or she sees them, and not force them into a box. Dear reader, learn from writing models, experiment with them, but don't slavishly follow them. Trust yourself. Believe in your vision, and then just write.

Jett Travolta

I was saddened to hear Friday's news that John Travolta's and Kelly Preston's 16 year old son died unexpectedly on New Year's Day.

I haven't particularly followed John Travolta's career, and was only vaguely aware that he even had a son until this happened. (He and his wife also have an 8 year old daughter, Ella). Because John Travolta is in a sense familiar to me, the news of this tragedy is striking, although really any 16 year old dying is a tragedy no matter how you slice it. There are many questions and details (that frankly are none of the public's business, and hopefully will not be released), but to me it's just sad.

Losing a dear person rips your heart out, whether you're famous and on top of the world or a nobody. The bleeding doesn't stop. There is nothing to say -- it just seems unbearable, and yet you must go on.

We live and breathe in this world, and it seems like nothing will change, that it will go on forever, but the reality is that there is nothing solid in this life. We all die. And then?

My deepest condolences go to John, Kelly, and Ella, and the family and friends of Jett. May Jett rest in peace.

Janus

Our month of *January* is named after the Roman god, Janus. Janus was the keeper of gates, doors, doorways, and beginnings and endings. He was often worshipped at starting events such as the harvest, planting, marriages, births; and transitional life events such as when a boy was now recognized as a man. A common myth told of Janus causing a hot spring to erupt, thereby foiling an attack against Rome.

Janus is shown as having two faces, one looking forward and one looking backwards. I can't think of a better picture for what we call *ambivalence.*

Dictionary.com defines ambivalence thus: uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things. Ambivalence comes from the Latin *ambi* meaning *both*, and *valentia* meaning *strength.*

I think ambivalence is a part of being human in a fallen world, and probably most decisions in life incorporate some degree of ambivalence. Even something as normal as eating breakfast can reflect uncertainty: should I eat the egg or the waffle? (or both?) Or just drink orange juice, or go without... I'm hungry, but I want to lose five pounds by summer...

But have you ever been gripped by a strong ambivalence? Something that is a constant fight within you, that doesn't stop? I imagine that all of us have at least one axis somewhere within our psyche that could make us vulnerable to a frozen ambivalence. What college shall I go to? Should I keep this job, or take that one? Should I marry her?

Should I? Can I? May I?

How horrible this is. I've often wondered if this is why people are so drawn to rules in all areas of life, so that these nagging doubts won't come to visit.

Ambivalence comes in different flavors: intellectual, emotional, moral; and many gradations in between. James 1:8 says *A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.* (AKJV) Yes, this ambivalence, no matter the root, is destabilizing.

It's important to know, really know, your values and goals in life so that when you are faced with these choices, you have a better sense of how to decide. Sometimes, though, life throws you a curve ball, and it's hard to know what to do or how to handle a problem. And then, what?

You will not always know the answer. Or maybe, you know the answer, but can't quite make the final step. Sometimes you hang on: you're too drawn even though you know you should move on.

Immobile, unable to go forward, unable to turn back. Just like Janus.

The solution? First, trust. Trust that God will redeem things, somehow, some way. Then, do the right thing, or the best thing within your power to know.

Being human in this fallen world is hard. I think of the film March of the Penguins, with the Antarctic penguins huddled in a circle through a windstorm with -60 degree temperatures and a four month night. I wonder if the angels look at us humans in this world like this: we don't even know how bad it is. We are battered by ambivalence, despite all of our effort to keep it at bay.

I believe though that God values our good choices, and He will make it right, if not in this world, then in the world to come. Sometimes, that is the best that can be said for a bad situation.

What think you, my friends?

Crazy English

I found this one on a website here. It's pretty cute, demonstrating the funny inconsistencies of the English language.

*****

Crazy English

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.

2. The farm was used to produce produce.

3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4. We must polish the Polish furniture.

5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10. I did not object to the object.

11. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

12. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

13. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

14. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

15. They were too close to the door to close it.

16. The buck does funny things when the does are present.

17. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

18. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

19. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

20. After a number of injections my jaw got number.

21. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.


Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

The Time Solid

I love to ponder the nature of time. The only thing I'm sure of is that we humans don't perceive it as it actually is. So what might it be like? Hmm. I have two favorite analogies: the time solid, and paint. I'm not saying these analogies are correct, or even mathematically consistent, just that they feel to me like they could very well be correct. And since it's my blog, I get to write about what I want to :-)

The first analogy, the time solid, I used to invent a mechanism for time travel in my novel, A Lever Long Enough. My analogy comes from Edwin Abbott's often-reprinted 1880 classic, Flatland. This is a terrific and readable book whose ideas on dimensions have stayed with me since I was a kid.

Taking a direct application from Flatland, imagine that you are a two-dimensional figure living on a plane (visualize that you are a square sketched on a piece of paper). Now imagine that your plane passes through a cube, point first. You’d see a triangle drawn on the paper that grows larger, then smaller again, then disappears. You’ve observed sequential slices of the same object over time, like a movie. As a two-dimensional being you wouldn’t be able to imagine what a three-dimensional constant object might look like, or that what you've just seen is qualitatively more of a square than you are. How could sequential views of a triangle even be a square? Similarly, if there is an arched shape that passes through your plane, you'd see two dots. If you push one dot, the other dot also moves and you can infer they are related although you confirm no physical connection between the two dots. Mr. Cube, though, easily understands this physical linkage.

Although our bodies exist in three dimensions, I imagine in my novel that time is a greater-than-three-dimensional constant solid object that we can only experience one slice at a time. My time machine is able to somehow “turn” the time solid so that one of the physical components becomes the cross-section while time is expanded into a full dimension. With this circumstance, an object can travel through seconds or years by being thrown into the time solid or pulled out of it.

The time solid is obviously an extreme oversimplification of what time might be like, and raises all sorts of metaphysical questions such as the existence of free will versus predestination. No, I won't go there today.

The time solid theory also doesn't take into account that time, in its true form, lacks "edges." What are edges? This is a sense, something I believe but it's hard to articulate. It's like explaining what the color "red" looks like. But let me try.

OK. Everything in this world has a beginning, and an end -- everything is "more than" or "less than" something else. There are no absolutes, since things don't exist in isolation, but only in relation to each other. It's hard for us to imagine, say, infinity of distance or size, because we have to start somewhere and continuously calculate "where we are now" compared to "where we were." These are edges. But time, I believe, is limitless and uncompared to other things, even itself. Time isn't linear; it only seems so to us because of our three dimensional limits. I believe that our bodies on this Earth are filters, interfaces, that allow our spiritual soul or spirit to interact with a three dimensional world. While we are attached to these bodies, we are unable to comprehend transcendent concepts, such as time.

Time may also be more than just one extra dimension that we see in cross-section. Lisa Randall, in her book Warped Passages, postulates eleven dimensions interconnected through the ubiquitous pull of gravity. I'm not even going to start on this concept, except to say that I'm not the only one who has strange imaginings!

OK, I think that's enough for today. Are you confused yet? My dear friends, please forgive me for rambling. In a near-future entry I'll explain why time is like paint :-)

New Year's Resolutions

Happy 2009, everyone.

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Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

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Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

Psalm 127:1 (NIV)

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"For I know the plans I have for you,"
declares the LORD,
"plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

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Here's to a new year, full of hope and promise!