Observation Journal — things that tell you what they’re doing

This observation journal post was an exploration of a pattern I’d noticed in some things I liked and in recent conversations — looking at where I saw it, and what it did, and what I liked about it, and how I could use it. In this case, it was the question of things that tell you what they’re doing.

Left-hand page: Writing in a second-hand shop where someone kept gradually increasing the volume on “MMM-bop“.

Right-hand page: I’d been thinking about things (movies, books) that tell you what they’re doing, and show you what they are — also talking to Helen Marshall about “books that teach you how to read them.” So on this page, I simply pursued some of those thoughts, and the patterns and links between them.

In particular, it was prompted by two then-recent trains of thought: I’d written the post Making Things Manifest — mock-ups and outlines that morning, and I’d just seen Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (cinema experience illustrated here). It also tied to earlier thoughts on staginess (Observation Journal — chasing patterns with digressions on the appeal of staginess).

As is often the case with the observation journal, watching the process itself is often the useful thing. In this case, it confirmed to me that this approach was a useful way to think more about what might otherwise have been fleeting interests. Even if, as here, I didn’t reach some overwhelming conclusion, the process of shuffling through my thoughts was valuable, and it helped me clarify some actual interests, and find intriguing new questions to pursue in future — it also underlined a difference between thinking-as-a-reader and thinking-as-a-writer, something I’m still learning.

Some key points:

• There’s an honesty and generosity to things that are very frank about what they are doing, even (especially!) if that’s experimental. I can be overly coy with drafts, and don’t particularly like highly signalled plots, so this is a useful course-correction.
• It honours and unifies books-as-objects (and other physical creative activities-as-objects).
• Strongly genre-specific books are often very up-front about what they are. This also means that if you’re doing something different, it can pay to be explicit. (In fact, if the common trend is strong enough, people still might not even notice the flags you were waving.) This was a common element in the Australian Gothic books I looked at for my MPhil, and when I was writing Flyaway: a reliably beautiful Gothic aesthetic often leans heavily and explicitly on a robust declaration of that beauty wherever possible. (I’m planning a post about that.) There are many reasons to be subtle, of course, but sometimes it’s simply a function of acting too clever for my own good, which can sometimes be mean.
• That honesty about boundaries and limitations also gives a really useful structural framework to swing around in.
• A clearly-stated structure, like a clearly stated aesthetic, has a strong gravitational pull. It attracts story to it.
• And in fact a vivid aesthetic can get a story a long way, if not the whole way (see e.g. Guillermo del Toro).
• For me, a strong aesthetic sense is one of the sparks that can bring an idea to life (see Observation Journal — a tremor in the web for the process of working that out). So I pushed a little further in that direction, thinking about structures in terms of their relationship to a clear aesthetic — specifically through Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, a movie which is very clear about the sort of movie you will be watching!
  • My first note on it was:
    curiosity/hope –> confirmation –> delivery –> reminder and clincher –> satisfaction = never distracted by expecting it to be some other movie
  • But I realised that this was very much me thinking as a viewer/reader rather than as a writer. I was looking at my reactions/interest rather than why I had those reactions.
  • So I broke it down again, looking at where the story signalled and anchored its (extravagantly gleeful and ridiculous) aesthetic/tone (there’s an overlap between those):
    HINT (before inciting incident)—play—ESTABLISH—play—EXTRA—business—(after denouement) FLOURISH

I hope to tie this to some current interests. One is how narrative time interacts with space and landscape and time (Intermultiversal interview). Travelogues, being literally vignettes from trains in motion, obviously connects to that. But Travelogues is also very up-front about being explicitly descriptions from trains in motion, with no secret subtexts.

The taking of reference photos

Observation Journal — a tremor in the web

[NB: On Friday night (US)/Saturday morning (AUS) I’m talking about Flyaway and art and writing games for the Storied Imaginarium!]

On this page of the observation journal, I was again looking at questions from the recorded interviews set for the class I was teaching.

By this point I’d worked out (through the journal: e.g. 1, 2, 3…) that I, personally, should avoid super-introspective questions. Your mileage may vary! As always, a large part of the usefulness of the observation journal is not so much the answers on the page as what I notice about the process of putting the answers on the page.

At any rate, I can eventually learn things, so in this case I deliberately chose questions from the interviews that felt like they inclined towards actions/useful information.

[Note: The first three questions are adapted from those developed by Associate Professor Kim Wilkins and Dr Skye Doherty for interviews with people in various creative industries, for the University of Queensland course HUMN3700: Creativity — myths, methods and impact.]

• How important are noticing and observation to [my] creative practice?
  • (The observation journal itself is obviously a key part of this.)
  • The process of sitting up and taking notice mid-way through a project is very useful. If I’m stuck on something, I’ll sometimes look around the room and try to add in a reference to (or a texture from…) something I can see. If nothing else, it will shake things up.
  • But it’s particularly important as an incidental/ambient part of what I do. As a library and a toolbox and a habit. As practice in the sense of doing scales on the piano. This is why, in addition to observation activities (observation exercises, ROYGBIV, etc) I also like games and exercises that let me pull out and rearrange and play with things I’ve already noticed and know. For example: Observation Journal — tables and other locations; The Key to All Mythologies.
• When do you get a sense that you can create something?
  • There are always ways to make something — knowing that aspect of the craft and/or the material helps a lot (and a lot of the journal involves that). But there’s also a distinct feeling when a thing seems to come with its own momentum, as if it wants to be made.
  • At this point, it felt like that feeling was usually attributable to three things:
    • Inspiration, in the form of a lot of creative input (exposure to other people’s work, to sources of ideas, or just to other people busily making things).
    • Desperation (I think now this is also a type of momentum — it usually happens when I’m being productive on other things. It’s just that I notice it more when the limits of time and space then stop me adding on new activities).
    • Boredom (the kind you have when there are no sources of distraction).
• How do you tell which of your observations are worth developing?
  • I think anything can be developed, and answering this tied into my ongoing thoughts on getting from an idea to a thing (e.g., Observation Journal — giving ideas a push; Observation Journal — Reflections and making things happen).
  • But for some projects there’s a moment of a spark or a sense of greater interest. This usually comes from mismatches, little (or big!) infelicities in the patterns of things (see e.g. Observation Journal — improbable inventions; Observation Journal — Mix and Match).
  • There’s often also a strong aesthetic that drives an idea (e.g. the baroque language of “The Heart of Owl Abbas”).
  • And all of this developed into a new reflection I added to some of my journal activities.
• The new question: Basically, I decided to try stopping (after coming up with ideas) and asking myself which ideas I liked and which I didn’t and then (and this is the important part) WHY.
  • I quickly ran a few recent ideas through that format, which revealed:
    • Ideas that felt as if they might have life had a feeling of narrative impetus, aesthetic charm, a through-line and an innate arc (those two might be the same thing)
    • Ideas that didn’t quite resonate had in common a structure without inhabitants (no people or viewpoint to hang it on), an aesthetic that didn’t charm me, and elements without an arc.
  • This meant I could make a note to further work on understanding the things that worked (e.g. what aesthetics charm me and why) and some tools to deal with ideas that haven’t quite come to life yet (e.g. narrative exoskeletons).

Writing/art/journal exercises:

• If you listen to an interesting interview with someone in your field (or any field, really), instead of (or in addition to) taking notes of the answers, take note of the questions, and try answering them yourself.
• Next time you make a list of ideas (new or existing), take time to go through and work out which ones do (and don’t) feel like something worth pursuing. Then make a few notes on why that is (in both directions. See if there are any patterns. Can you draw some lessons from that for ways to strengthen future ideas?

Watching Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears — the last visit to the cinema Before Everything. No regrets.

Read and Seen — March 2020

March was… certainly a month, so I didn’t get drawings done, much read, or this post up at the end of it.

But over the last few months I did seem to read quite a bit (entirely, or partially) about time and lives and disguises and occasional plot-incidental cats, so here is a sketch:

It is said you can’t bring anything through that wasn’t yours to begin with… but that doesn’t stop them following.

Books:

• Spellcoats — Diana Wynne Jones (for reasons)
• His at Night — Sherry Thomas
• “The Seventeen Executions of Signore Don Vashta” — Peter M Ball
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane — Neil Gaiman (annual reread for Genre Fiction class)
• Permafrost — Alistair Reynolds

Movies

• Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (I am very glad this was my last movie at the cinema — it was also interesting for the clarity with which it stated, affirmed, and stuck the landing of its genre/aesthetic choices)

Several of these show up again in my Notes on Books in the observation journal, so I might have more to say later