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

[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.