Watching a black belt exam

[pegkerr]

Tonight, the head instructor of the girls' karate school, Mr. Sidner, was testing for his fourth degree black belt, so Rob and I and the girls went to watch the exam. It was the first time we've seen a black belt exam, for all the black belts testing region-wide. The whole thing lasted about three hours. I found it fascinating (the girls were interested, for the most part, although Delia did get restless toward the end). In the defensive section, Mr. Sidner did one of defenses from a wheel chair, taking out his attacker using only his arms. Quite convincingly, too.

As I watched the students kick and punch, I thought about something kijjohnson said once, that the practice of writing should become like the practice of karate: if you want to become good, you have to practice your forms every day. I want to study karate, but I will have to wait until the girls are out of daycare, and so we have a little more margin in the budget. I thought about discipline, watching those intricate forms, the jumps, the kicks, the looks of intensity on faces, young and old. My discipline in terms of my writing life has been nonexistent for the last several years. I am not sure whether motherhood is a sufficient excuse or not. In my blacker moments, I think it is not, that I am flunking being a writer. But I have been trying, to get my life back to the point where I can give the writing the discipline I need, by cutting other extraneous stuff out of my life. I'm almost there--but I sit down in front of the keyboard and . . . .nothing.

Architecture intimidates me. It intimidates the hell out of me. For my first book, I had to learn about jewelry making. I don't know why that didn't seem quite so scary. Perhaps because I was describing Renaissance jewelry making, and I didn't think there would be scads of people who knew enough about the subject to tsk tsk if I got it wrong. The second book got more intimidating: I was trying to get into the mindset of gay Manhattan subculture, and what the hell did I know about that? I worried incessantly whether or not I got it right, but . . . I dunno . . . there didn't seem to me to be anything technical about it.

Architecture, now. Mathematical and precise, with an engineering mindset which is foreign to me--is that what's paralyzing me? Or is it simply Jack the mysterious who is the problem, Jack the maddening, the elusive, who in my low moments I have started to dub Jack-the-jerk?

What is my beginning form here? What is my target to kick and punch? And should I have been acting as if I have been testing for my belt all along, and I haven't even known it? When are they going to inform me that they're kicking me out of the writer's karate school for lack of progress?

Or for self-absorbed navel-gazing instead of writing, for that matter. Yeesh.

Comments

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

hiya. I am not an architectural scholar, however it is the biz I work in, if you have any question, please feel free to ask at chance at cmorrison.com because I do know some stuff.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Ericka took karate classes for people with disabilities at Courage Center locally. There are pictures of her taking first place in forms and sparring somewhere in the depths of my computer at home. She was very impressed by the fellow with (I think) CP who had lost most of the use of his arms and sparred mainly with his feet; she said he had "wicked" feet.

You may be approaching architecture in a way that is too precise for your needs. Do you need to relate the specifics of how to do architecture? Those are the parts that are mathematical and precise. The parts that other people see are elegant, subtle and artistic. I recommend going to the Weismann Art Museum on the U of M campus. In a conference room therein, are Frank Gehry's concept sketches; if anything can cure you of the idea that architecture is mathematical and precise, it is those sketches.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Having done some poking about, I think this animated gif covers what I'm talking about:

http://www.weisman.umn.edu/architecture/surprises/images/building_animation2.gif

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks for showing me that.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Dunno if this will be at all reassuring or not, but, being as I'm both a silversmith and a literary critic, and someone who was utterly enthralled by _Emerald House Rising_? I'd say that your research skills and your inherent understanding of the topics that you choose are both in *very* good shape. Just me ...

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think that in karate, as in writing, showing up and doing your best is the most important thing. But then there comes a point when you have to go beyond just showing up and doing your best. I'm not sure how that pertains to writing, but I know I've gotten to that point in karate. How to transcend just trying hard, I'm not sure, but when I figure it out, I'll let you know.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Karate, like everything else, gets broken into tiny units at first--manageable units. And you drill them every day, over and over, then start putting them together into the forms.

So can you break the writing down into smaller increments, especially while you're busy and there are so many demands on your time?

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I've both studied karate (husband is a second-degree black belt) and am studying architecture. Both disciplines represent a rather different way of looking at the world. I'm actually using the karate information for Animal Control, and it's been fun tapping my husband's brain about what it was like for him when he started studying karate at age nine, when there were no other children at his dojo and all of the other beginning students were adults.

For a general look at some very user-friendly architectural criticism/commentary, I'd recommend anything by Penn arch prof Witold Rybczynski, especially "Home: A Short History of an Idea" (which will give you the warm fuzzies about your own home) and "Looking Around." His writing style is very accessible and you don't have to have a slew of architectural history in your brain already to appreciate what he's writing about, although a general grasp of European social history is helpful for "Home."

For other architectural criticism that may help you in writing about an ice palace, you could read about the Crystal Palace that was built in London; about Frank Lloyd Wright's proposed crystal tower in Manhattan that was supposed to incorporate an Episcopal church for one of the 1920's most radical Episcopal priests; and about Gothic design in general, especially the use of neo-Gothic forms in the late nineteenth century that used metal, rather than stone, to interpret the pseudo-naturalistic forms of the Gothic for a new age. Reading about Wright would probably be most instructive, since he was so gung-ho about naturalistic forms, as seen in his design for Temple Beth Sholom (described as "a glowing Mt. Sinai" at night) and other houses of worship. (He designed A LOT of churches and synagogues.)

[siriologist.livejournal.com]

Research and expertise on the subject that you book centers around is definitely important and lends credibility to the rest of the plot, but your books have always been about so much more than the stuff you can research. They've been about the humans that inhabit the world and how they interact with the subject of the research. You need to be comfortable with architecture to allow your character to inhabit that world, but whatever world they inhabit they will still be human and you already know plenty about being human. Are there short character studies you can do that might help you figure out what research you need to do? Can you write portions of the book and leave blanks you can fill in when you feel more comfortable with the subject? Can you write portions of it where architecture is important and then send it to Barb or other expert and let them guide you into what you might need to know?

You don't need to get too technical, actually, but you might need to know how a architect looks at things and places and spaces.

Anyway, I'm not sure I know how you do all that you do and have the brain space to think in terms of your characters. Since going back to work full-time, I seem to have lost any brain-space left for imagination of more people. Is there a chance you can get away on your own for a weekend and let your brain open up to let your characters start talking to you again?

Well, I'm rambling, what I intended to say in all this is don't let the technical stuff get you hung up. Your books are more than the technical details, they are important, but not the core point of the book. Look to that and maybe that will give you the push you need to start writing again, just a little at a time.